HBO Max
After a long development period and one eight-episode season, HBO Max officially cancelled Duster, a crime series on the 1970s set by JJ Abrams and Latoya Morgan.
The announcement arrives just days after the season’s finale debuts, marking the sudden end of a high concept thriller starring Josh Holloway and Rachel Hilson.
In the short term, several years
The Duster was originally ordered back in 2020 and took several years to reach the screen. The series followed Hillson’s character Nina, the first black female FBI agent to recruit Holloway’s gym, a reckless escape driver, on a dangerous mission to dismantle a growing crime syndicate in the US Southwest.
Despite strong receptions from viewers and critics, the show holds a 92% critical score and an 84% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, but Duster struggled to generate quite a bit of talk. It was consistently charted in the HBO Max’s internal top 10, but it was unable to break into Nielsen’s top 10.
HBO Max and Warner Bros are working on cancellations
In a deadline statement, outlet HBO Max, who first broke the news, said:
“HBO Max will not make any progress in Duster’s second season, but I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to work with amazingly talented co-creators JJ Abrams and Latoya Morgan.
Warner Bros. TV has been added:
“JJ Abrams and Latoya Morgan provided a thrilling, multidimensional crime drama with Duster. The textured characters brought the audience back in the 1970s in new and innovative ways. These characters are brought to life by an incredible team led by Josh, Rachel, Rachel and a very talented ensemble cast, and together with our expert crew, we are incredibly proud. We had the opportunity to talk about Jim and Nina at HBO MAX.”
A tough stretch for Abrams
Duster marked Abrams’ first television project as a writer or director since the 2010 short-lived undercover. Although once the dominant force of serialized television thanks to hits like Alias, Fringe and Lost, Abrams’ recent return to small screens has been slower.
Following his pivot into blockbuster film production in the 2010s, including directing entries for the Star Trek and Star Wars franchise, his final feature film was Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. It was commercially successful, but its legacy is split.
Abrams is reportedly already working on a new secret science fiction project that began filming earlier this year. The film stars Glenn Powell, Jenna Ortega, Emma Mackey and Samuel L. Jackson, but details of the plot remain rap. When the duster is off the board, all eyes may change from the creative like they used to be to what comes next.
