Thanks in large part to Game of Thrones, the fantasy genre is now a TV mainstay, though it's been largely impossible for any other shows to bring in the same kinds of audiences as the HBO epic. The MTV-and-then-Spike drama The Shannara Chronicles suffered ratings woes during its first two seasons, and it has now been cancelled at the soon-to-be-renamed Paramount Network. But because the show has also built up a dedicated fanbase, and it looks like the Shannara Chronicles production company is trying to sate those fans by actively trying to make Season 3 happen at another network.
The Shannara Chronicles bounced from MTV in Season 1 to Spike in Season 2, and now that it's been cancelled by the latter, we probably should expect it to end up on any other Viacom channels. According to Deadline, production company Sonar had actually started having conversations with other potential buyers before the cancellation news was made public, so it would appear that optimism for renewal wasn't so high with the creative team, which includes creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar.
Perhaps interestingly, it isn't just TV rights that Sonar is shopping around. In case any curious parties are into it, The Shannara Chronicles' feature film rights are also included, as are the merchandising rights and the interactive rights. (The interactive stuff includes any virtual reality or augmented reality projects that might inspire development.) There is a larger multimedia franchise just waiting to be created within the Shannara Chronicles universe, but somebody just needs to bring the money to it. Since Season 1 is streaming on Netflix, maybe that company will decide that the reward is greater than the risk.
Based on the best-selling fantasy novel series written by the always excellent Terry Brooks, The Shannara Chronicles managed to gain a lot more critical acclaim with Season 2 -- its Rotten Tomatoes score is currently perfect for the second year, even though there aren't that many reviews -- but its actual viewership sunk hardcore when flipping from MTV to Spike. At no point during its Season 2 run did the live audience grow bigger than 310,000 people, and though its delayed viewing stats were okay, they weren't impressive enough to automatically assume other studios will jump at the chance to make Season 3. But maybe...
While we're obviously unsure what will happen with The Shannara Chronicles moving forward, we know there are definitely people out there who want to see it live on. (Maybe there's a way to turn it into one of those Game of Thrones spinoffs? Probably not.) Make your voices known, people! And when you're done with that, head to our midseason premiere schedule to see what's going to the small screen soon.
