Well, it’s not “mission accomplished: just yet, but just 10 days after Syfy announced the cancellation of the critically-acclaimed and deeply-loved space sci-fi series THE EXPANSE, word has come down that Amazon is in discussions to pick up the show for a fourth season to air on Amazon Prime! It’s still too early for fans to pop the champagne corks, but we’re definitely in a much more optimistic place than we were last Friday when I posted this urgent blog.
Now, as much as I’d like to believe this move was the result of fans hiring a place to fly a banner over the Amazon Studios in Santa Monica saying #SaveTheExpanse and sending Jim Holden-inspired coffee care packages to employees at Amazon, there’s actually quite a bit more going on.
First, Syfy canceled the show because, quite frankly, they had a terrible deal. The series is very expensive to produce. Syfy didn’t own the show and only had the ability to make money from selling advertising on the airings of The Expanse on their network in the U.S. Netflix has the international rights, and Amazon has the SVOD (streaming video on demand) rights for the U.S.
And that pre-existing deal that Amazon had for the SVOD rights meant they already had some skin in the game on this series. But add to that the fact that, reportedly, Amazon CEO Bezos is a big fan of The Expanse book series. Back when the TV series was first being shopped around, Amazon lost the bid to Syfy (owned by NBCUniversal). Bezos was apparently furious and told his people he wanted them to go out and find a Game of Thrones-level show like The Expanse for Amazon Prime. And now Bezos might finally be getting exactly what he wanted…along with a last laugh at the company that outbid him for The Expanse in the first place.
In the meantime, folks, please keep watching The Expanse within three days of its first airing on Wednesday nights at 9pm Eastern (8pm Central) on Syfy. The more profitable we make this show look, the better!
