Trying to break cancellation issue down...
I’ve been off Tumblr most of today fighting the good fight over on Twitter, so this was probably posted elsewhere, but I’m seeing a lot of people confused about who is responsible for what.
I encourage them to check out this article at USA Today, which breaks it down better than anywhere else I’ve seen so far. Particularly:
Freeform had been in negotiations with Constantin Films, a co-producer of the show, to produce fewer episodes to make room for the channel’s other projects. But that plan jeopardized an existing deal with Netflix, which owns streaming rights for the series outside the U.S. and pays a large portion of the show’s production costs.
So. To paraphrase, as best I understand it (and I could be wrong on some of this, it’s just hard to pick through all the articles and commentary and get a thorough idea of what is happening):
Constantin Film has the adaptation rights. (not Freeform) They are the ones who produce the show. They own the rights to make ANY show based off the TMI and TID books.
Freeform has the DISTRIBUTION rights in the US for live airing. That deal is between Constantin and Freeform.
Multiple other places, like Itunes, Hulu, Amazon, etc have streaming rights in the US. What part of deciding who gets US streaming rights rests with Freeform and what part rests with Constantin, I’m not sure, but since Hulu shows the eps with a Freeform watermark, I’m going to speculate that Freeform decides who gets streaming rights in the US, at least in part.
Netflix has the INTERNATIONAL distribution deal with Constantin (idk if Amazon and Itunes carry it internationally, but I know Hulu doesn’t.)
So basically, Freeform ponies up some of the money for production, and Netflix ponies up some of the money for production, and both of them give that money to Constantin, who sees that the show gets produced.
Freeform wants to focus more on its original content, like Siren and The Bold Type and Grown-ish and the Pretty Little Liars reboot and Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger. Disney (who owns Freeform) probably also wants this for Freeform, because when and if Disney goes live with their own streaming service, that’s the shows they’re going to be streaming.
But it’s got Shadowhunters, this show that it doesn’t actually OWN, eating up a big chunk of prime time real estate for half the year. And sure, they could shunt SH to a less desirable time slot, but they’re paying a pretty penny for it, and the live ratings don’t really justify that pretty penny and would only get WORSE if they played musical time slots with the show.
So, Freeform wants to pay Constantin Film less for fewer episodes for season 4.
But Netflix ALSO has a deal with Constantin for distribution of this show, and Netflix doesn’t want fewer episodes per season, because Netflix is doing quite well on this show, internationally. However, Netflix is in a dick-measuring contest with Disney because Disney wants to compete with Netflix in the streaming market and Netflix is all “NO WE’VE GOT THE BIGGEST INTERNATIONAL STREAMING DICK STEP OFF” and so Netflix decided it would rather not pay Constantin for the show at all rather than have a reduced run that will profit Freeform/Disney in a move that would ultimately be detrimental to Netflix by benefitting their competition.
So, early reports that this is entirely Netflix’s fault are actually slightly misleading. A large part of the blame rests with Disney/Freeform because they want a bigger slice of Netflix’s pie. But Netflix does shoulder SOME of the blame because apparently they would rather set fire to all their toy blocks than share them.
I don’t see a way out of this situation relying on Freeform and Netflix, unless Constantin is willing to sell the adaptation rights to one or the other, which doesn’t seem to be the case?
Our best hope seems to be for Hulu (partly owned by Disney) or some other network or streaming service to kick in the funding Netflix yanked. Which would probably still result in a shorter season 4, but at least there would BE a season 4 and the show wouldn’t be left trying to wrap up an entire book worth of material in a single 2-hour episode.
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