Stephen King's "It" remake might be breaking records in cinemas right now, but, apparently, not all of his adaptations are successful. That includes "The Mist" which just got axed from Spike after one short season.
Based on the King novella of the same name, "The Mist" was ordered in a straight-to-series commitment in April of this year with Spike having high hopes of it becoming a hit. After all, there has been an extreme uptick in all things King recently.
The TV adaptation premiered on the network on June 22 on a healthy note, drawing 1.2 million viewers. However, the show saw a significant drop in numbers in the subsequent episodes. According to Screen Rant, after that strong figure, the show struggled to break the 800,000-viewer mark, even with DVR viewing included.
Among adults 18-49, "The Mist" couldn't even make it to cable's top 30 scripted series, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The negative reviews the pilot season earned were not helping either. These, however, were not the only factors which convinced the network to pull the plug.
The publication claims another element at play here is Spike's impending rebranding as Paramount Network. That shift is scheduled to take place in January 2018 as part of a larger overall plan to reinvigorate Viacom, the network's corporate parent.
Kevin Kay, the network's president, told the publication back in March that King's TV adaptation could move to the new network for season 2 as long as it performs well. However, as mentioned earlier, things did not turn out well and it resulted in a sad ending for the series.
"The Mist," however, is not the first show Spike has cancelled. "Red Mars" and Jerry Bruckheimer's "Harvest" were scrapped as well.
Replacing these will be a collection of new and high-end scripted shows including "Yellowstone," starring Tye Sheridan; miniseries "Waco" starring Michael Shannon and Taylor Kitsch; and two TV Land-developed series, "American Woman" and "Heathers."
