While Fox has had a few bright spots on its fall TV schedule, there has been one show in particular that has not reached such great heights. That show is Minority Report, a small screen sequel of sorts to the 2002 Steven Spielberg film of the same name. After its first episode failed to garner eyeballs, subsequent episodes have done even worse in the ratings, leading 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch to admit Minority Report has been a “disappointment” this week. It’s a hard fall for a show that received plenty of buzz before its premiere.
Fox has not had the best year in terms of earnings, thanks to a few TV flops and more importantly the long, hard fall of the Fantastic 4 reboot, which ended up only grossing $56 million in the United States. While it’s not even wholly Minority Report’s fault that earnings are down, you have to assume that a new story set in the world of a well-liked and still-relevant movie would already have had a built-in fanbase. Unfortunately, it didn’t.
The quarter one financial news prompted a call with investors, which is where The Wrap reports the disappointed line came from. Oddly, usually it’s the job of the CEO to try and spin bad news into not-so-bad news, but because Murdoch offered the information without even being prompted, it seems things are so bad they weren’t even worth trying to spin in a different way.
If you haven’t been keeping tabs on Minority Report, we called the show out as a flop weeks ago, following the premiere. Only 3.1 million total viewers tuned in to watch the drama during its first outing—respectable numbers for a network like Syfy but not Fox—and the numbers continued to falter in the weeks that followed. Recent episodes have done less than 2 million viewers and Fox decided to cut the episode order of the series from 13 to 10.
It’s kind of amazing that the network hasn’t just outright cancelled the series, but it won’t be back at midseason this year. That doesn't keep us from believing that it's pretty much over for Minority Report, even if Fox doesn't officially say so for months. It's over. It’s done. It’s a “disappointment.”
Fox doesn’t have the best track record with sci fi programming, having been responsible for the cancellations of Terra Nova, Almost Human and of course the late, great Firefly. But while those shows at least had avid fanbases, Minority Report does not seem to be pulling together a big fan community or online following.
You can catch the last few episodes of Minority Report on Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.
