Courtesy of Netflix
'Bloodline'
The streamer renewed the Kyle Chandler drama for a shortened 10-episode season in July.
The end is near for Bloodline.
The third season of the twisted family drama starring Kyle Chandler will be its last on the streaming service. The Sony Pictures Television-produced series was renewed in July, shortly after the second season debuted on May 27. At the time, Netflix told The Hollywood Reporter that it would not be the final season.
However, in an in-depth story on the inner workings of the streaming giant, THR exclusively revealed that Netflix had notified Sony that the upcoming season, set for 2017, would be the show's final outing on the platform. The streamer also cut the episode order from 13 episodes to 10, and slashed licensing fees on the show. Still, the two companies deny there are tensions between them. It's unclear whether Sony will try and shop future seasons of Bloodline elsewhere.
Series creators and executive producers Todd A. Kessler, Daniel Zelman and Glenn Kessler have said that they have a five- or six-season plan for the drama. "We're doing a TV series, so even in our own mind, we're asking ourselves, 'Does this series have seasons in it?' " Zelman told THR last year. "When we pitched it and we thought about it, we were thinking five to six seasons down the line because we wanted to make sure it could hold that much material. So we certainly have ideas for where everything could go and hopefully where everything will go."
Prior to the renewal, a third season of Bloodline had been uncertain after Florida cut its entertainment tax incentives program, therefore making the series much more costly to produce. The Islamorada-based drama, along with Miami-set HBO football comedy Ballers, had grabbed the last of the available monies from the $300 million the Sunshine State had allocated for film and TV projects in 2010, allowing both shows to get through their second seasons with significant financial breaks. But with the incentives pot dry, season three of Bloodline will likely be a pricier undertaking.
Todd A. Kessler, for his part, acknowledged the uncertainty of the show's future at the Los Angeles premiere of Bloodline's second season in early June. "Netflix is evaluating how it's doing for them and how it's performing, and are very hopeful that there will be a future as are we," he told THR, later adding that the series isn't just shot in the Keys because of financial enticements. "We decided to set the show there … because it's crucial to what the show is, not because of the tax incentive, but it does affect things financially for us and the show will be challenged because of that. It makes things more difficult."
The cancelation marks a rare move for Netflix. Apart from axing the Norway crime drama Lilyhammer and the horror entry Hemlock Grove after each of their third seasons, the streaming platform has yet to cancel any of its other original series. Netflix's roster has grown significantly in the last three years, up from five original series in 2013 to nearly 30 and counting.
Netflix
