‘Dangerous Liaisons’ Canceled At Starz In Reversal Of Season 2 Renewal

Rosy Cordero
·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

EXCLUSIVE: Dangerous Liaisons has been canceled at Starz, reversing its early Season 2 renewal. The remaining three episodes of the 8-episode first season will air as scheduled.

Executive producers are actively shopping the period drama around, Deadline hears.

More from Deadline

Dangerous Liaisons’ Season 2 renewal was announced on Nov. 1, ahead of the series’ Nov. 6 debut. According to sources Starz brass continue to believe in the show creatively but the prequel to the famous 18th-century novel struggled to find an audience, leading to its cancellation.

On linear, Dangerous Liaisons premiered with a 0.03 rating among the 18-49 demographic and only 88,000 total viewers, according to live + same day Nielsen data. Things didn’t improve in the following weeks, with the show dropping as low as a 0.02 and 52,000 total viewers for the Thanksgiving weekend episode. Though ratings improved slightly with its Dec. 4 airing, the show has yet to crack a six-figure L+SD audience thus far. Starz has not disclosed data on delayed viewing and streaming audiences on the Starz app where Dangerous Liaisons had been expected to do most of its business.

The period drama stars Alice Englert as the Marquise de Merteuil and Nicholas Denton as Vicomte de Valmont. It tells the origin story of the two iconic characters when they met on the eve of the revolution in Paris. Kosar Ali, Carice Van Houten, Hilton Pelser, Fisayo Akinade, Michael McElhatton, Nathanael Saleh, Colette Dalal Tchantcho, Hakeem Kae-Kazim and Tom Wlaschiha also star.

Dangerous Liaisons, which hails from Lionsgate TV, Playground Entertainment, and Flame Ventures, is the second period drama to be canceled at Starz, following freshman series Becoming Elizabeth in November.

Lionsgate has been scrutinizing its balance sheets as the company is preparing to spin off its studio from Starz next year.

The series was created and written by Harriet  Warner who also executive produced alongside Playground Entertainment’s Colin Callender, Tony Krantz for Flame Ventures, Bethan Jones, Scott Huff, and Christopher Hampton. Barney Reisz produced. Coline Abert, James Dormer, and Rita Kalnejais served as writers on the series alongside Warner.

Katie Campione contributed to this report.

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.