HBO killed a potential golden goose by canceling The Outsider

Observer

The Stephen King series was popular and had tremendous upside, says Brandon Katz. "While there always exists the possibility of behind-the-scenes motivations we’re not privy to, we can’t help but feel HBO President of Programming Casey Bloys may have made the wrong call here (a rarity for him)," says Katz. "The show averaged more than 8 million multi-platform weekly viewers, ahead of Damon Lindelof’s breakout Watchmen (7 million). Its finale scored 2.2 million multi-platform live viewers, earning the largest percentage gain (90%) from debut to finale of any HBO Original Series historically in its first season. From a commercial standpoint, The Outsider appeared to be a full-fledged hit. Creatively, the series represented a golden opportunity for HBO to mine one of the most popular IPs in contemporary pop culture: Stephen King. Hulu took a stab at this with Castle Rock, which attempted to traverse the mythological scale and intimate character storytelling of King’s most famous works. It was a phenomenal concept with uneven execution; Hulu cancelled the series after two so-so seasons. In its wake, The Outsider could become the connective tissue between King’s famous works, giving HBO a goldmine of source material to remix and a familiar franchise to excite fans."