‘Champions’ Canceled By NBC, Mindy Kaling-Created Show Being Shopped Around
NBC has knocked out the comedy Champions, canceling the series after one short season.
Created and executive produced by The Mindy Project‘s Mindy Kaling, the show starred Anders Holm (Workaholics) and Andy Favreau (Aquarius) as brothers Vince and Matthew Cook, respectively, who own a gym in New York City. Their lives then get thrown upside down when Vince’s ex, Priya Patel (a recurring character played by Kaling), introduced him to the gay son he never knew he had, Michael (Glee‘s J.J. Totah), and brought him to the city so he could attend a prestigious performing arts high school.
The series premiered on NBC on March 8, and the last of its 10 episodes aired on May 25.
“I wanted to do something very different than The Mindy Project,” said Kaling about Champions to Entertainment Weekly earlier this year. “I just felt it would be so inspiring to see a diverse young person who was an openly out character, who also loved New York City. I thought that would be such a fun world to write about and inhabit — a kid who was not from New York City, who loved it.”
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Champions “could only muster a 0.7 rating among adults 18-49, and 2.4 million viewers” during the course of its network TV life, which made it NBC’s lowest-rated series for the 2017-2018 season and “one of the five worst performers across all of the Big Four [ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC].”
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Reportedly, Netflix, who has the international rights to stream Champions, was offered the series, but decided not to pick it up for a second season. Kaling and production company Universal Television will continue to shop the show, hoping to land a deal with a new network soon.
Kaling already has good ties with Hulu, so maybe Champions will wind up there.
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When her breakout series, The Mindy Project, was canceled by Fox in 2015 after three seasons, Hulu picked it up and aired three additional seasons of the series.
And, this spring, Hulu announced it would run a limited series written and executive produced by Kaling that is based on the 1994 film, Four Weddings and a Funeral, reported Variety.
Well dammit. So many good times, so many good jokes, so many good folks… anybody need a dog walker? https://t.co/re9kiVXrDT
— Anders Holm (@ders808) June 30, 2018
In recent weeks, many television programs were grabbed up by new networks after getting canceled by the channels they originally aired on. Brooklyn Nine-Nine will now report to NBC instead of Fox, Lucifer was killed by Fox, but is being resurrected by Netflix, and Last Man Standing got the ax from ABC in 2017, but is returning this fall on Fox.
