Why Netflix’s Arcane Was Canceled and Won’t Get a Season 3

Just as Season 1 showed that these adaptations could be successful (even Emmy-worthy), Exciting surprised us again after Netflix announced that the second season would be the show’s last. Already.

The news was announced in June 2024 along with the first season two trailer, five months before Arcane’s return to streaming. Critics and fans alike loved the first season, especially the animation, which was superbly done by Paris-based studio Fortiche, so the news came as something of a shock.

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However, this isn’t just a case of Netflix canceling a show in its prime: it turns out the plan was always to finish Exciting after just two seasons.

speaks to Black, this was revealed by co-creator Christian Linke Exciting marks “the beginning of our greater storytelling journey and partnership with the wonderful animation studio, Fortiche”.

He continued: “From the very beginning, since we started working on this project, we had a very specific ending in mind, meaning the story of Exciting ending with this second season. But Exciting is just the first of many stories we want to tell in Runeterra.”

At a time when more and more shows are being canceled after ending on a cliffhanger, or ending up ending way too early, it’s rare and refreshing to hear that the end of Exciting is the ending the creators always planned — and the ending fans deserve.

In a recent chat with CinemaBlendLinke further expanded on the reasoning behind this decision, explaining that “We always had a specific story in mind.”

“Look, you could have stretched it, I’m sure. But for us, it was always like we started with this in mind. I think there’s also a personal angle to it as creatives. We’ve all seen TV- the shows, where the writers are running out of juice. How inspired can you be about the same, how long it’s been nine years for us, with these characters we’re like, that’s what we had in mind.”

He added: “This is the story we had in our heads that we want to tell. It’s irresponsible to stretch this to the point where it feels like we can’t even really do it justice. I think ​​that was a big part of it. We don’t want to overdo it.”

Is Arcane Getting a Season 3?

As great as it is to hear, some fans may be confused by this as Black previously reported it Exciting was originally planned to be developed as a five-season arc. Rumors have suggested that the cost of each episode, which totals $250 million to produce and promote, may have also played a role in the series’ abrupt end.

In responseArcane co-creators Christian Linke and Alex Yee cleared up the speculation in an interview with TechRadar, with Linke confirming that five seasons was “never the plan”.

“When we started building out the story after the pilot, that’s when we thought, ‘Okay, it’s going to be two seasons.’ The plan was never for it to be five seasons.”

It turns out that these rumors may have originated thanks to a direct comment from former Riot Games CEO Nicolo Laurent:

“We had the pilot or a few episodes, but we still hadn’t greenlit a full season. At that point, Nicolo thought it would be really fun to pull me into a room and say, ‘Hey, I know you have not given the green light yet and I decided not to give it to you’ I sat there looking quite upset before he added ‘Because I’m giving you the green light for five seasons’. ”

Yee added that these were words of encouragement rather than an official commitment to five full seasons:

“Making an animated series — it has such a long development pipeline that it was a lot for us to ask them (Riot’s executive team) to trust us with a season. But we also said, ‘If you want there to be one more season shortly after we have to start working on it while we finish the first one’, so the five-season joke was their way of saying ‘Hey, we’re going to give you a lot of runway with this. ‘.”

Five seasons of Exciting was never on the map back then, but that doesn’t mean the world depicted in this show is over. Aside from the games this story is based on, Linke’s original comments came when Arcane’s the end was first announced suggesting that there is much more to come.

So if”Exciting is just the first of many stories that we want to tell in Runeterra,” what’s next after Exciting even come to an end?

Given the success of this first League of Legends story, it seems likely that future projects will also be animated by Fortiche in the same way, thereby maintaining a cohesive vision for this expanding universe.

Story-wise, nothing is confirmed yet, but with a wealth of source material for inspiration, it won’t be long before legendary stories like ‘The Harrowing Of The Shadow Isles’ and ‘The Ruined King’ hit Netflix. Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another three whole years for the franchise to return like we did for Exciting season two.

Exciting seasons one and two are now streaming on Netflix.

After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, covering everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.

In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor and later Acting TV Editor.

David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation, and in 2020 he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and long-form readings.

In addition, David has interviewed all your favorites including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King and more – not to mention countless Drag Race legends.

As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a number of publications including Empire Online, Radio TimesINTO, high snobbery, Den of GeekThe digital correction and Sight and sound.

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