Amazon quickly axed Kevin Bacon’s horror comedy series “The Bondsman” just six weeks after it debuted last month.
The series, shot out of Raleigh Studios in Senoia (previous home of “The Walking Dead”), received solid critical reaction with an 83% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Viewership information was limited because Amazon only provides selective numbers and Nielsen publicly releases information about just the top-rated streaming shows.
“The Bondsman” landed at No. 9 the week it came out on Nielsen’s most-watched streaming original series in early April, then fell off.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
Clearly, Amazon had much higher expectations for the series, hoping to capture the crowd that loves “The Boys” and “Reacher.”
In the eight episode series, Bacon plays Hub, a bondsman in a small town who dies but the Devil decides to bring him back to life to take down other more problematic demons.
This gives him a chance to spend more quality time with his mom (Beth Grant), who is also a bondsman, and try to win back his ex-wife (Jennifer Nettles) and teen son (Maxwell Jenkins).
“We wanted to create a laugh out loud, scream out loud roller-coaster ride where you don’t know what you’re going to get next,” said Erik Oleson, the showrunner and writer, in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution before the series debut April 3. “It’s so full of heart and soul and love and life and yes, Kevin Bacon puts chain saws through demon’s faces!”
While Hollywood Reporter reviewer Angie Han praised Bacon’s “effortlessly winning lead” performance, she deemed the series as a whole “fitfully amusing but rarely as funny or heartfelt or surprising as it wants to be, and never as memorable as its attention-grabbing premise might lead you to hope.”
This is the third streaming series shot in metro Atlanta canceled after just one season this year. Two Peacock series, the drama “The Teacup” and the horror dramedy “Hysteria!” both debuted last fall and were nixed by the winter.
The NBC dramatic series “Found,” which starred Shanola Hampton and was produced in Atlanta, was also canceled this past week after two seasons. Another NBC series “Grosse Pointe Garden Society,” which is currently airing, is still up in the air.
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