Word of the cancellation comes on the heels of news that series’ executive producers Mike Flanagan and Trevor Macy are leaving Netflix for an overall deal with Amazon Studios. Their Intrepid Pictures had been under a Netflix deal since 2019.
Adapted from a book by Christopher Pike, the story examined terminally ill teens living at Brightcliffe Hospice, a spooky mansion with its own secrets.
The 10-episode first season revolves around a group of five young men and women who met at midnight and told stories of intrigue and horror. One night they make a pact that the first of them to die would make every effort to contact the others from beyond the grave.
The drama stars Iman Benson, Igby Rigney, Ruth Codd, Annarah Cymone, Chris Sumpter, Adia, Aya Furukawa, Sauriyan Sapkota, Matt Biedel, Samantha Sloyan, with Zach Gilford and Heather Langenkamp.
Created by Flanagan and “The Haunting of Bly Manor” writer Leah Fong, “The Midnight Club” marked not just Flanagan and Macy’s first foray into young-adult content, but also their first show that was intended to be a multi-season project. However, Flanagan had already mentally prepared for the idea it might not be renewed, and told press ahead of its premiere he would share his Season 2 plans if “Midnight Club” was scrapped.
“This was designed to be ongoing,” Flangan said at a gathering with press in October. “I don’t know if it will. We’ll see how it goes and we probably won’t know for another month or so what Netflix wants to do. But it was very much designed to continue. Pike has 80 books, so we have a lot of unused material to pull from… We also didn’t answer some of the bigger questions of the season. Those answers exist, but were meant to be for the next season. If there isn’t one, I’ll put them up on Twitter. Then we’ll at least all be able to talk about it.”
The timing of the show’s cancellation comes just as it’s been reported that Flanagan would be moving on from Netflix to Amazon Studios, inking a multiyear deal to produce exclusive shows for Prime Video. Along with Trevor Macy, Flanagan previously worked on the anthology horror shows The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass. They’re also still working on one more project for Netflix, dubbed The Fall of the House of Usher. Unlike these other shows, only The Midnight Club was conceived as potentially lasting many seasons.
