Amazon Prime Video has officially canceled season 2 of The Peripheral, starring Chloë Grace Moretz. Despite the series receiving a season 2 renewal back in February, Prime Video has canceled the upcoming season and pinpointed Hollywood’s double strike as the cause. Three months after the beginning of the screenwriter’s strike and a month after the actors’ guild also went on strike, producers have stated that the costs of keeping The Peripheral in holding were too high. While this is the first project to receive a renewal reversal due to the strikes, the question remains: how many more shows will follow in its wake?
Prime Video Cancels ‘The Peripheral’ Season 2 Amid Strikes
First premiering in October 2022, The Peripheral is a futuristic sci-fi drama from the creators of Westworld. Set in the year 2032, season 1 follows Chloë Grace Moretz as Flynne Fischer, a young woman who’s “trying to hold together the pieces of her broken family in a forgotten corner of tomorrow’s America.” In an attempt to pay off her mother’s medical bills, Flynne uses her talent for VR gaming and ends up in a simulated world full of secrets and subterfuge, along with some hints about her own fate. According to the official synopsis for The Peripheral, Flynne is “smart, ambitious, and doomed. She has no future. Until the future comes calling for her.”
Executive produced by Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, The Peripheral season 1 bears a lot of the same futuristic, sometimes-trippy hallmarks of the beloved HBO series. Given that the show’s first season ended on a cliffhanger, it’s not surprising that Amazon Prime Video made the decision to renew The Peripheral for season 2 in February. However, in an unfortunate turn for both fans and creators of the series, the Writer’s Guild of America strike began on May 2nd, 2023, leaving The Peripheral season 2 only partially developed and no way forward without its screenwriters.
Now, 109 days into the WGA and 36 days into the SAG-AFTRA strike, Amazon has chosen to throw in the towel. The stated decision behind the cancellation is two-fold: for one, making a sci-fi drama like The Peripheral is expensive. On top of that, even if The Peripheral were to resume production now, Variety confirms that season 2 wouldn’t be released until sometime in 2025. Such a delay would disrupt Prime Video’s slate of upcoming projects, as well as cause The Peripheral to lose a large number of viewers that would be forced to wait three years for another season of a first-year show.
While The Peripheral season 2 being canceled is unfortunate, it’s important to note that it’s likely the beginning of a trend of renewal reversals, which may continue until both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are resolved.
Season 1 of The Peripheral is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
