Chicago Justice Cancelled
Poor old Philip Winchester can’t catch a break! NBC have announced ‘Chicago Justice‘ is cancelled after just 1 season.
Things started to look a little shaky for the latest Dick Wolf spin-off when the show was missing during the Upfront announcements last week. As we mentioned yesterday, there are a number of changes afoot this year in US TV, with networks favouring shows which they wholly own, or that give them a larger stake in the ‘backend’. Unfortunately for Wolf, the Chicago franchise is not as financially rewarding to the network as it used to be, and we’d been hearing rumblings one of the newer shows might not return. Once all the others were renewed, things looked grim for Justice…
On paper ‘Chicago Justice’ had a lot going for it. Not only was it tied into the larger Chicago franchise, but also had links back to Wolf’s other hugely successful franchise. It centres around prosecutor Peter Stone (Philip Winchester – Strike Back), the ambitious Deputy Chief of the Special Prosecutions Bureau, and son of renowned New York City District Attorney Ben Stone, from Law & Order.
Whilst it’s ratings were the lowest of the Chicago series, they were still higher than some other shows on the network, such as ‘Shades of Blue‘ and ‘Taken‘, which did get renewals. Again, this comes down to cost vs. reward for the network. Whist the two renewed shows may have slightly lower ratings domestically in the US, NBC has a larger ownership stake in them, and can therefore make more money off them when they are sold to streaming services and internationally.
This is the 2nd single season show for Philip Winchester since he and Sullivan Stapleton finished their run on ‘Strike Back’. ‘The Player’, which saw Winchester teamed opposite Wesley Snipes, also only lasted 1 season. I interviewed Philip for the launch of ‘Chicago Justice’ a few months ago, and he’s such a nice guy. I really hope the next show he lands is a massive hit!
‘Chicago Justice‘ is currently airing on Universal Channel in the UK.
