Edge Of History,’ Which Everyone Ignored Or Hated, Cancelled By Disney

Disney Plus has a bit of a problem. Outside of its library of classic animated hits and its Star Wars and Marvel content, it has yet to find anything really in the middle, namely a bunch of family-friendly dramas, comedies and adventure series that all seem to end up failing. And failing quickly.

Nothing perhaps sums up this issue more than the recent National Treasure: Edge of History series, taking the name of the original National Treasure film series starring Nicholas Cage and quickly…erasing more or less everything people liked about it. While obviously the old cast is gone, the tone was wildly different. Now it’s dead after one season, cancelled by Disney.

I know a lot of people literally had no idea this show existed at all. And those that did seemed to hate it. The show was panned by critics, a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, and also audiences, a 49% instead, extremely low for an audience score which generally tends to skew much higher for projects like this. But no one was biting.

This is one of a whole lot of different series in a similar category that Disney has axed including, Turner and Hootch, Game Changers, The Mysterious Benedict Society, Diary of a Future President, Big Shot and The Might Ducks: Game Changers. The common thread here is mostly live action series that do not fall into the Marvel or Star Wars categories. Though even those series have trouble establishing themselves as actual shows that will return year over year, as many serve as one-offs or lead-ins to larger movies. And certainly some fall flat on their face (looking at you, The Book of Boba Fett).

Probably the most ambitious non-Star Wars, non-Marvel live action project Disney Plus has cooking is its revival of the Percy Jackson franchise, which boasts a large fanbase and some level of excitement to see it return. That show already has run into tragedy with the death of Lance Reddick, who was cast as its new Zeus. It remains to be seen how successful the show will be overall, or if it might be another National Treasure.

It’s true that all streaming services are undergoing at least some level of problems these days. Netflix is dramatically overspending and has content bloat. HBO Max is now “Max” and has seen dozens of series killed off or stripped away as WB Discovery cuts costs. Disney has struggled to find unique hits on Disney Plus, and really hurt a lot of its theatrical business with ill-advised streaming only movie releases.

So no, it’s not a huge surprise to see a badly conceived and executed projects like National Treasure: Edge of History cancelled. But Disney really has to figure this out for the long term.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.