Johnny Knoxville has responded to Hulu’s decision to scrap Reboot after just one season.
The meta-comedy from creator Steven Levitan – his first project since Modern Family – ironically followed Hulu’s decision to reboot its former hit 2000s sitcom Step Right Up, forcing the cast to reconcile and settle their unresolved issues.
Knoxville starred alongside Judy Greer, Keegan-Michael Key and Calum Worthy as the show’s original cast, with Rachel Bloom as the millennial writer behind the reboot idea.
“It’s with a heavy heart that I say that despite getting great reviews and being nominated for a Critics Choice Award, Hulu has failed to pick up Reboot even for a second season,” the Jackass star posted on Instagram.
“Pretty unbelievable,” Knoxville added. “It’s not over yet though, as we tend to shop it around and hopefully it will find a home with a studio who believes in and knows how to properly support a new show as it continues to grow.”
Debuting in September, the eight-episode season one ended on a cliffhanger in its October series finale, as Levitan had planned for it to be a multiple-season series.
In an earlier interview, Levitan shared that he saw Reboot as “much-needed therapy” as it offered him the space to “say some of the things [he’d] been thinking” about in his career. He said he considered it a “love letter to sitcoms”.
“It occurs to you that it’d be a much smarter move to just say, ‘I’m going to ride Modern Family out with the sunset and go off to wine country,’” Levitan said, speaking about the pressures of creating another show after his Emmy-winning ABC success. “But I wanted to keep working. I enjoy this and like to write and create. I do feel the pressure of that. I tried to harness it in a good way to motivate me to not settle.”
Upon Reboot’s launch, it was mostly well-received by critics, currently holding an 88 per cent critics approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
However, it sits at a considerably lower audience score of 68 per cent.
Reboot was part of Hulu’s scripted comedy offerings which also includes How I Met Your Father, Life & Beth and Only Murders in the Building.