It’s been just three weeks since Netflix debuted the ten-episode first season of its live-action Cowboy Bebop series, but the streamer has officially pulled the plug. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show will not be back for a second season. Expectations were high but critic and audience reviews were decidedly mixed, with the show achieving a 46 score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 56 score from viewers.
Just before the series premiered, Netflix began releasing data about its most popular shows and movies. While Cowboy Bebop did apparently rate an impressive 74 million viewing hours worldwide, the numbers started to dwindle each week, making it less of a success for the streaming service that has been churning out new programming constantly.
Some fans were disappointed with the news, especially since it now leaves off on a cliffhanger ending that will never be resolved. John Cho, Mustafa Shakir and Daniella Pineda starred as bounty hunters in the remake of the popular anime series. Other anime adaptations like Dragon Ball Evolution and Ghost in the Shell have been met with similarly lackluster results. Netflix does have several other anime-to-live-action projects in development, including One Piece, YuYu Hakusho, and a Gundam movie.
Here’s the official description for the show, which remains available to watch on Netflix: “Based on the worldwide phenomenon from Sunrise Inc., Cowboy Bebop is the jazz-inspired, genre-bending story of Spike Spiegel, Jet Black, Faye Valentine, and Radical Ed: a ragtag crew of bounty hunters on the run from their pasts as they hunt down the solar system’s most dangerous criminals. They’ll even save the world… for the right price.”
Check out our review of Cowboy Bebop and a Q&A with actor John Cho and musician/DJ Steve Aoki.
