Horror auteur Mike Flanagan is one of the most well-known names in the industry today given his expressive visual storytelling and excellent regard for all things horrific and chill-inducing. The filmmaker has grown in recent years in popular culture following the Netflix deal which witnessed some of the best limited-series works from the narrator. But after his brief stay at the streaming platform, the time has come for the creator of Midnight Mass to move on and Amazon Studios looks like the place for some respite after Mike Flanagan’s stint at the ‘flix.
Also read: Is Netflix’s The Midnight Club Related to The Haunting of Hill House?
Netflix Cancels Mike Flanagan Series Amid His Exit Report
Shortly after the soaring success of The Haunting of Hill House, Mike Flanagan, the brilliant and horrific mind behind the Netflix show landed another contained, limited series titled, The Haunting of Bly Manor. Similar in many aspects and yet drastically different in their execution, the two stories overnight built up Flanagan’s pop-culture rep among the new generation of Netflix binge-watchers looking for something that isn’t droll in its cyclical unending seasons and predictable plots.
After Midnight Mass premiered, it soon shot up in the charts marking a hattrick for Flanagan at Netflix and his beloved fandom at the streamer was soon gifted with something that portrayed the creator’s gratitude — a show that wouldn’t be a limited series but continue beyond the first season. Irony had to deem that gift, i.e. The Midnight Club unworthy of such ambition, having overstayed its welcome on the platform. Netflix soon canceled the show after its cliffhanger finale of Season 1.
Like most of his shows on Netflix, The Midnight Club, too, has now been cursed with a single-season tenure that had become the marker of Mike Flanagan’s signature recipe for success. However, the downward-sloping viewership numbers of the show added to the streamer’s decision to cut its losses. Moreover, reports of Mike Flanagan exiting Netflix for a more lucrative multiyear contract with Amazon Studios added to the finality of that decision even though the creator had promised to provide a satisfactory closure to his viewers and not leave them high and dry if the series failed to reach its decided resolution.
The audience is then left to wonder if the unwarranted hint that a cancellation was on the horizon was in Flanagan’s knowledge and if he was already marking an exit strategy before Netflix made the news official.
Fans Demand Mike Flanagan Keep His ‘Clayface’ Promise
It isn’t every day that a mind as brilliant and creative as that of Mike Flanagan is keen to approach the comic book movie industry with anticipation and excitement. Given the recent trend of great filmmakers bashing the CBM industry for striving to achieve narrative escapism, overarching vision, and heroic idealism, Mike Flanagan’s favorable approach toward picking up one of the most underrated comic book villains aka Clayface was lauded and received with unanimous praise.
It has now been almost two years since he made an indication of stepping into the world of DC cinema. Considering the torrential downpour of controversies, mergers, cancellations, backlash, and negative criticism surrounding DC since January 2021, it isn’t surprising that Flanagan had remained quiet on his part about the Clayface promise. But now that his tenure at Netflix has come to an end, fans have demanded that he pick up the project which in popular opinion would be dealt great justice at the hands of the auteur considering his fascination and expertise with physical horror.
The timing, even more so, serves as perfect for Flanagan to put out some feelers about making a Clayface live-action film/series since Matt Reeves is decidedly set upon building an expansive Batman universe with multiple spin-off projects in tow. Clayface, being one of the most iconic Batman villains, would do immensely well when brought to the screens for the first time and pitted against the hyper-realistic Robert Pattinson’s dark knight. Surely, Flanagan can somehow make the surrealistic villain work even amid the grim realism of the Matt Reeves universe.
Source: The Wrap
