HBO Cancels ‘Westworld’ After Ratings Drop
Westworld’s creators hoped they would get a chance to finish telling their story, but HBO canceled the series after the fourth season. Sources say the decision came due to a sharp decrease in ratings following the second season and an overall decline in popularity with fans.
‘Westworld’ co-creators wanted another season to end their story
At New York Comic Con in October, there still seemed to be a glimmer of hope that Westworld would be back on HBO for one more installment. “We always planned for a fifth and final season,” co-creator Jonathan Nolan said (per Deadline). He added they were “still in conversations with the network” at the time and said, “We very much hope to make them.”
“[Nolan] and I have always had an ending in mind that we hope to reach. We have not quite reached it yet,” co-creator Lisa Joy explained.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav vowed to follow through with an aggressive plan for cutting costs at HBO, which was reportedly behind the cancelation of Batgirl. However, this was not cited as a factor in the decision to cancel Westworld.
Ratings drop seems to be behind HBO’s decision to cancel Westworld
According to THR, a drop-off in ratings following the second season of Westworld is most likely behind the decision by HBO.
They shared, “… Linear ratings for the expensive series fell off sharply for its third season, and then dropped even further for season four. Westworld‘s critic average on Rotten Tomatoes likewise declined from the mid-80s for its first two seasons to the mid-70s for the latter two.”
Furthermore, “Fans regularly griped that the show became increasingly confusing and tangled in its mythology and lacked characters to root for.”
‘Westworld’ co-creator gave a glimpse of the end before HBO canceled the show
While speaking on the Script Apart podcast, Lisa Joy gave fans a glimpse of what was planned for the fifth and final season. Aside from getting a chance to work with actors like Evan Rachel Wood again, Joy said that she and Nolan had a clear vision for the end of the story and they wanted to share it.
“I think the future of the show is up to us as humans and as robots. There’s a final chance, and I do mean final, to get it right, to find a way to not self-destruct and break each other apart. But we are out of chances,” Joy explained. “This world is not meant for us any longer.”
She went on, “We don’t get it, no one gets it, and there is a way sometimes where if we don’t fix the world, it’s true. We don’t get to live in the same world.”
“Westworld is a cautionary tale and I’m hoping that we have a 5th season so we can see what the moral of the tale is,” Joy concluded.
