Skip to main content
Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
More On:
Cowboy Bebop (2021)
Late on Thursday, December 9, news broke that Netflix had cancelled one of its big November releases, Cowboy Bebop, after one season. The show had only been on the streaming giant for three weeks and was already struggling to keep up with the likes of fellow Netflix originals like Lost in Space, Arcane, True Story, and the tender, quiet juggernaut Maid. The news was somewhat shocking as Netflix usually waits a full month before passing judgment on a series’ future, but also it wasn’t that big of a surprise. After all, Cowboy Bebop was doomed from the start.
Cowboy Bebop was the long-awaited live action adaptation of the 1990s hit anime series of the same name. The Japanese animated series conquered the world with its genre-bending, heart-breaking, pulse-pounding idiosyncratic sense of cool. Its core characters — Spike Spiegel, Jet Black, Faye Valentine, and Ed — inspired fans and creatives for decades to come. The show’s soundtrack? Legendary. Naturally there were multiple attempts to adapt the series in live action for the screen. None stuck until Netflix got its own shot at rebooting the franchise, but it seems the streamer has since soured on the project.
While Netflix has recently become more transparent than ever before with its ratings, it’s impossible for outsiders to know just how massive a disappointment the lavish action series’s reception was for higher ups. We know that it must have underperformed, though, thanks to the fact that its placement in the streamer’s Top Ten has kept tumbling. (And because Netflix canceled it. Duh.)
But what exactly went wrong with Cowboy Bebop? And should Netflix have seen its failure coming lightyears away? And if nothing else, what can Netflix learn from its Bebop blunder?
Netflix Actually Struggles With Reboots, Revivals, and Big IP
Alright. Someone has to say it. The biggest and most influential Netflix hits tend to be originals that are actually original. I’m talking Squid Game and Stranger Things. Narcos and Orange is the New Black. Many hits come from book adaptations, such as The Queen’s Gambit, Bridgerton, 13 Reasons Why, and even the recent hit limited series Maid. But Netflix’s big plays for pre-established IP have been less than stellar. The Marvel Netflix shows are being erased or retconned from MCU canon as we speak. Jupiter’s Legacy was a colossal bust. And now Cowboy Bebop is seemingly dead on arrival. Sure, there’s The Witcher, but part of that show’s charm is how it chaotically sets its own pace (and has the framework of novels to buttress its video game roots).
So it’s looking more and more like maybe trying to cash in on a beloved franchise isn’t Netflix’s sagest move. Its breakthrough hit of the year was a Korean-language class struggle murder show that most Americans watched with subtitles. That suggests that Netflix’s viewers are way more amped about discovering a new story than being spoon-fed reboots. Going forward, I wouldn’t be surprised — or I would at least be heartened — if Netflix gives the proverbial green light to original concepts over reboots.
Of course, being a reboot in and of itself wasn’t bad enough. Cowboy Bebop’s source material should also have been cause for concern…
Anime Adaptations Usually Miss the Dang Point
Of all the big name IP a network can choose to adapt, video games are going to be the hardest to nail. (Unless, like The Witcher, they’re based on books.) The second hardest? Animation.
When it specifically comes to anime, Hollywood can’t seem to get it right. Ghost in the Shell, Alita: Battle Angel, Dragonball-Z and even Netflix’s own Death Note… these are just some of the poor attempts to capture the glory of a popular anime in live action onscreen. While there are some decent attempts — the Wachowski’s Speed Racer always pops to mind as an underrated one — most live action anime adaptations miss the point of their source material.
Animation not only affords creators more freedom to depict fantastic situations, but it also, like reading, gives viewers a space for their own imagination. Style often is the substance when it comes to anime storytelling. Any attempt to make animated characters seem three-dimensional is going to lose something in translation.
Cowboy Bebop’s creators tried to slavishly recapture the anime’s most iconic visuals at the loss of its storytelling soul. But then, if they didn’t care about copying the original series’s style, that, too, could have turned fans off. They were screwed no matter what.
‘Cowboy Bebop’ Had Competition. A Lot of It. Even On Netflix.
Way back in ye olden days, when streaming was young and shiny and new and special, Netflix only had a handful of streaming originals they put out a year. Therefore, shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black found little to no competition in the streaming space for their premieres. Back then, Netflix drops were an event in and of themselves for cord cutters. With Hulu and Prime Video lagging ever so slightly behind the content churn, Netflix could rest easy that their big lavish productions would get every subscriber’s eyeballs.
Cut to late November 2021. The streaming world is an overpacked cesspool of content. With Thanksgiving on the horizon, every major streamer is planning at least one big debut. Prime Video had The Wheel of Time. Disney+ had Hawkeye and the hyped Beatles doc Get Back. Hulu had its never-ending pipeline of network premieres and The Great Season 2. And Netflix? Competing with Cowboy Bebop in its first two weeks were the likes of Tiger King 2, Arcane, True Story, Selling Sunset Season 4, the season finale of The Great British Baking Show, and Oscar-bait movie Tick, Tick…Boom!. Not to mention the fact that hits like Maid, You, Narcos: Mexico and Locke & Key were already dominating the starts when Bebop premiered.
If anything, Bebop’s biggest competition came from Netflix itself. Subscribers had their attention pulled by too many titles in the week of the show’s debut. What’s extra worrying about Cowboy Bebop not getting space to shine on its first week out is that rival streamers outside have started leaning more on weekly distribution models. This means non-Netflix shows have weeks to build up word-of-mouth hype and to slowly build an audience. Bebop had to hit upon its debut. After that, Netflix would be moving its attentions on to December releases. Most notably, the upcoming Witcher Season 2.
Cowboy Bebop was never given the head start it needed to succeed on the scale that its troubled, expensive production demanded…
The Production Was a Teeny, Tiny Bit Cursed
I don’t know how else to put this, but Cowboy Bebop did not have a smooth ride to the screen. Putting aside how long it took for anyone to make a live action adaptation, Netflix’s show was besieged by bad luck. Sure, COVID-19 hit every production, but Bebop had another taste of doom. Star John Cho was so severely injured on set that production had to break for months and months.
I’m no psychic, but Bebop might have been legitimately cursed. Like by evil spirits. (Just a theory!)
The Show Wasn’t Good (Sorry to People Who Liked It)
Finally, the real problem Cowboy Bebop was that it sort of sucked. Sorry if you liked it! I have many friends who inexplicably did. I understand being enthralled by the likes of John Cho, Mustafa Shakir, and Daniella Pineda, but outside of the show’s core three stars, everything was a mess! Fight scenes moved at a molasses-slow pace. Dialogue was cringe-worthy. Whole episodes focused on side characters devoid of charm. The show thought Spike needed a more fleshed out backstory??
Look, the joy of the anime — outside of its aforementioned visual style — was how the Bebop crew bickered and bonded on missions. And those aforementioned missions? Wrapped up neatly within a 20 minute long run time. Cowboy Bebop worked when it let Cho, Shakir, and Pineda hang together on screen. Unfortunately, it was way more interested in Vicious (Alex Hassell), Julia (Elena Satine), and spinning narrative wheels than just being Bebop.
The show simply wasn’t good enough to justify the cost, time, and energy Netflix would need to dump into a Season 2. It wasn’t good enough to surface itself to the top of viewers’ queues. It wasn’t good enough to live.
Making Cowboy Bebop a massive success for Netflix was always an uphill battle. If Netflix can learn anything from its failure, it should be to invest in creativity above all else. Instead of betting big on the next eight-season hit derived from tired IP, see what hits organically and double down. And to maybe not anger any anime-related ghosts. (Kidding, kidding. I’m sure there’s not a curse!)
