‘Agent Carter’ season 3: Netflix boss explains not picking up Hayley Atwell series

From the moment that “Agent Carter” was canceled by ABC, there were of course many fans looking to help find it a new home and understandably so. The writers did a great job of creating this world, and Hayley Atwell embodied the title character like nobody’s business. Unfortunately, the ratings just weren’t there, and there were many reasons why Netflix did not pick it up.

Chief content officer Ted Sarandos spoke further on this subject while at the TCA Summer Press Tour this week, and specifically said (per Entertainment Weekly) that licensing and international deals were a part of the problem:

“We’re looking for truly original brands to own … and in that Marvel space we already have [original comic book shows] – so that was mostly why … They also have some [international] output deal complexities. So when you pick it up, being able to pick it up globally is difficult even after it’s canceled. Some of those output partners still had it on the air, so they would argue its covered by their output [deals]. Unfortunately, it was a business decision more than a creative one.”

Another issue domestically may be that “Agent Carter” is on Hulu rather than Netflix, and that creates a variety of different problems of its own. The whole situation is somewhat reminiscent of why Netflix couldn’t pick up “Hannibal,” another brilliant-but-canceled series. It had an exclusive streaming deal with Amazon, who argued themselves that wanting to own their own original properties was one of the reasons why it was not picked up there.

As of right now, maybe the best thing to hope for is that Peggy pops up somewhere else on a Marvel show / movie, even though Atwell is going to be rather busy for some time with “Conviction” coming on ABC this fall.