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Marvel’s Helstrom has been canceled after just one season at Hulu. The drama series was the final live-action project produced under former Marvel TV president Jeph Loeb, who left the company in October 2019.
Hulu first picked up Helstrom in May 2019, shortly after Marvel’s overall TV deal with Netflix fell apart following the cancellations of Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and Daredevil. At the time, Hulu ordered Helstrom alongside another Marvel TV project, a live-action Ghost Rider starring Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s Gabriel Luna, but the Disney-owned streamer axed the Ghost Rider series due to creative differences with showrunner Paul Zbyszewski.
While Helstrom was Loeb’s final live-action series, his legacy will live on in two forthcoming animated shows, MODOK and Hit-Monkey. According to The Hollywood Reporter, both series are slated to debut in the first half of 2021.
The cancellation of Marvel’s Helstrom officially puts a pin in the Jeph Loeb era of Marvel Television. After nearly a decade with the Marvel offshoot, during which he spearheaded Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., various installments in Netflix’s Defenders franchise, and more, Loeb exited the company amidst a restructuring that folded Marvel TV into Kevin Feige’s Marvel Studios. As a result, all of Marvel’s live-action TV series are now produced exclusively for Disney+ and serve as either spinoffs or continuations of storylines featured in Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbusters.
Based on Marvel comics characters Daimon and Santana Helstrom, Hulu’s Helstrom starred Tom Austen and Sydney Lemmon as the children of a serial killer who hunt the worst of humanity. The drama also featured Elizabeth Marvel as Victoria Helstrom, Daimon and Santana’s mother, who has been living in a psychiatric institution for 20 years; Robert Wisdom as demon fighter Henry; Ariana Guerra as Vatican agent Gabriella Rossetti; June Carryl as psychiatric hospital head Louise Hastings; and Alain Uy as Chris Yen, Ana’s surrogate brother.
Helstrom debuted in October 2020 to a poor reception from critics, although viewers seemed to like the series a bit more (the Marvel TV drama has a 27% Critics Rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but an 86% Audience Score). As Decider’s Joel Keller put in his initial review, Helstrom is “slow-moving and dull, and is more interested in brooding dialogue than actual scares.”
