Fox’s music drama Star has been canceled after three seasons. Its producing studio, former Fox sibling 20th Century Fox TV, is already shopping it to other platforms. Star’s cancellation is not unexpected. As we noted in our story yesterday on Fox’s decision to pick up four new drama series, with a fifth pending, the move did not bode well for the network’s bubble dramas Star, Lethal Weapon and The Passage. All of them were canceled today. Created by Lee Daniels and Tom Donaghy, Star followed three talented singers – running from their pasts and desperate for a new start – with ambitions of stardom, as they navigate the cutthroat music business. The series spent most of its run paired with Fox’s hip-hop family drama Empire. Family soap pilot Filthy Rich, whose series pickup at Fox is pending, is being eyed as a companion for Empire. Related Story Network TV Series Cancellations For 2018-19 Season: Photo Gallery Star, which premiered onDecember 14, 2016 with Empire as its lead-in, starred Queen Latifah, Jude Demorest, Ryan Destiny, Brittany O’Grady, Amiyah Scott and Quincy Brown. Scott became the third openly transgender person to play a major trans character in a scripted television drama series. Star existed in the same musical universe as Empire and the two shows crossed over in the second season. The series also included a star-studded roster of guest stars including Lenny Kravitz, Naomi Campbell, Tyrese Gibson, Gladys Knight, Missy Elliott, Big Boi and Paris Jackson, who made her acting debut on the series. That said, Star raked in solid numbers but hit a ratings low last November. The musical drama is expensive to produce, and its international sales have been challenging, which made the renewal decisions a bit more complex. Daniels and Donaghy executive produce alongside Pamela Oas Williams. Karin Gist serves as showrunner and executive producer. Network TV Series Cancellations For 2018-19 Season: Photo Gallery<doc-sep>FOX cancels Lee Daniels’ drama Star after shocking season 3 cliffhanger Star was one of two shows 20th Century Fox Television had in association with Lee Daniels. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images) After just three seasons, Fox Network has cancelled the Lee Daniels produced show Star. Recently it was announced that the musical drama, which starred the likes of Queen Latifah, Ryan Destiny, Quincy Brown, Brittany O’Grady, Jude Demorest and many others, would not be renewed for another season. News of the Empire spinoff getting the ax comes as a shock to fans, seeing as to how the season three finale left off on a huge cliffhanger. The last episode aired on Wednesday (May 8), just two days before the cancellation announcement. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Atlanta-based drama managed to have a “fairly stable,” third season, having only fell by 11 percent in viewership, a huge contrast to Empire‘s 21 percent decline in the same 18-49 adult demographic. Yet, despite the drop, and recent controversy surrounding co-star Jussie Smollet, THR confirms that the Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard lead series Empire will indeed return for a sixth season. READ MORE:Fox renews ‘Empire’ for season 6, without Jussie Smollett As for Star, TVLine reported that the sitcom averaged 3.5 million viewers for Season 3, compared to Season 2’s 4.1 mill, and hit a series low as recently as May 1. While show-runner Lee Daniels has yet to release a statement addressing the cancellation, Daniels’ more recent Instagram post alleges that Star was trending #1 in America as recently as two days ago. READ MORE: The complete 2019 American Black Film Festival film lineup is here – and it’s good Actress Ryan Destiny, who played Alexandra Crane on the now defunct TV drama, responded to the news by tweeting a behind-the-scenes photo with her and fellow cast-mates, captioned, “To the fans, we love you.” To the fans, we love you. pic.twitter.com/q30zaGg5JL — RD (@RyanDestiny) May 11, 2019 Meanwhile, Jude Demorest, who played the main character with the show’s namesake, uploaded a photo to her Instagram moments before the announcement, the following words, “Bye for now. xo Starletta.” Share<doc-sep>The reign of Empire on Fox is coming to an end next year. Just two weeks after the Charlie Collier-run Fox Entertainment renewed Lee Daniels and Danny Strong’s hip hop drama for a sixth season and guided Jussie Smollett toward the exit door, it was announced Monday during Fox’s pre-upfront call that the self-described “groundbreaking cultural phenomenon” will be canceled once Season 6 is done next year. “We are turning the final season into a large TV event — we are trying to go out guns a-blazing,” Collier said on the call of Empire‘s last season, which will be 20 episodes. “You allow fans to lean in and have the ending they deserve.” Questioned about the possibility that the legally challenged Smollett could return for the final season, Collier dodged and replied with language reminiscent of last month’s press release. “There’s an option to have Jussie in the series but we have no plans for that,” he said, noting that the writers room for Season 6 hasn’t been opened yet. Related Story Fox Fall 2019-20 Schedule: WWE, NFL, No Live-Action Comedies With 'Last Man Standing' Held, 'Empire' & 'Resident' To Tuesday Dropped less than a week after the fifth season of Empire wrapped up with its Casablanca-ish finale, Monday’s news also included the shifting of the Chicago-filmed series back to its original Tuesday 9 PM slot, meaning a primetime team-up with an also-moved The Resident and its third season. The shift to Tuesdays also puts the already ratings-bedeviled Empire up against NBC’s heavy hitter This Is Us. On the up side for fans of the series led by Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard, planning for the resetting sixth season is still very much in the early stages, as Collier essentially said today and showrunner Brett Mahoney told me on May 8. It leaves plenty of time to craft a proper conclusion. The axing of Empire follows the cancellation of co-creator Daniels’ 20th Century Fox TV produced Star on May 10 after three seasons; this morning, Collier called the decision “difficult.” Legal drama Proven Innocent, the midseason replacement executive produced by Strong and Disney-owned 20th Century Fox TV, was pink slipped by Fox after one season on May 11. Caught between lower than expected ratings and the costs of doing business with a former corporate sibling, the Star and Proven Innocent cancellations, painful as they were for those concerned, were pretty straightforward. Amidst other long-in-the-tooth issues, Empire was pummeled this year by ratings lows and the ever-spiraling controversy over the January 29 presumed hate crime Smollett is now alleged to have perpetrated against himself. Things were still looking good several weeks ago for a longer run when options for key cast like Lyon matriarch Cookie (Henson), patriarch Lucious (Howard), on-screen sons Bryshere Y. Gray and Trai Byers, and Gabourey Sidibe and Nicole Ari Parker were sewed up last month for another season, I hear. As for Smollett, who has played Jamal Lyon on the series since its early 2015 debut, Fox Entertainment and now Disney-owned 20th Century Fox TV “negotiated an extension to Jussie Smollett’s option for Season 6.” However, with Jamal already written out of the final two episodes of Season 5 months ago as the situation around him grew more convoluted, the network and the studio added on April 30 that “at this time there are no plans for the character of Jamal to return to Empire.” Now there are no more plans for Empire to return to Fox beyond its next upcoming cycle, a fact that would have seemed absurd just a few years ago. In its first and second seasons, the blockbuster drew big number from almost every facet. In fact, breaking the status quo of steady decline, for a while Empire was on a winning trajectory of growing almost every week in the ratings to hit new highs. While currently Fox’s second best-performing drama after 9-1-1, the heights of those early days have long since passed. Still, today’s cancellation comes as a bit of a surprise after the March 20 promotional spotlight Fox cast on the show once the $71.3 billion acquisition by Disney went through. Ultimately, having scored more seasons than most in today’s Peak TV era, Empire fell prey to forces primarily outside its own small-screen borders, felled in part by a combination of the impact of streaming services and delayed viewing on the Big 4 ratings and Disney’s recently hoovering up of primary Fox assets like the TCFTV studio. Pour into that a strategic shift as the Murdoch-owned Fox network solidified an early decision to fill a fair chunk of its two hours a night of primetime programming with high-cost and high-return sports like the NFL and WWE’s Smackdown. Landing on that increasing rickety structure of Empire‘s future was the Smollett assault scandal that tumbled right into the cutthroat politics of Chicago. Insisting on his innocence in the early morning incident in January, Smollett on March 26 a pulled a lucky straw with overwhelmed prosecutors that saw 16 felony charges erased and his case sealed. The actor was facing years behind bars for supposedly staging a racial and homophobic attack on himself. Instead, he forfeited a $10,000 bond and was given credit for a stint of 20 hours of community service. An almost immediate storm of protest rose up from the likes of early and empathic supporter Donald Trump, soon-to-be ex-Mayor Rahm Emanuel, plus the Chicago PD. First Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Joseph Magats quickly tried to deflect by telling local media he believed Smollett was guilty of staging the attack himself. Handed the case after Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx recused herself under what has become increasing criticism, Magats also said the deal and the sealing of the case did not exonerate Smollett. It was a PR nightmare no one was really ever waking up from. Since then, new lawsuits have gone back and forth, with the city going after Smollett when the actor declined to repay $130,000 for the costs of the investigation.<doc-sep>Fox chief Charlie Collier has addressed the challenge of diversity at the network following the cancellation of a number of shows with African American leads. Collier, speaking on the Fox upfronts press call, said that the “effort continues, it never stops”. This comes after Fox cancelled shows including Lethal Weapon, Lil Rel Howery-fronted Rel from Jerrod Carmichael, Russell Hornsby-fronted legal drama Proven Innocent from Danny Strong and Stacy Greenberg, David Alan Grier-fronted comedy The Cool Kids, and Lee Daniels’ Star, which is ending after three seasons. Fox revealed that Empire is also ending after its forthcoming sixth season. Collier said, “The diversity of Fox is an issue that is so important and an ongoing effort for us to make sure we’re best in class. As I was looking at Fox and joining, what’s remarkable is that the history of this company and what it’s done in terms of diversity…. If you look across our slate in terms of scripted and unscripted and sports, we really are doing a good job but the job never stops. The effort continues, it never stops.” This also comes after Fox received an F grade or incomplete from the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition for its inclusion of Asian Americans on the 2017/18 season. Fox did not provide diversity data to the organization.<doc-sep>
The cancellation of musical drama Star was a “tough choice” for Fox but came as it wanted to give Empire the “send-off it deserves.” Fox Entertainment CEO Charlie Collier told Deadline that the Star cancellation was tied in to the fact that it wanted to prioritize Empire as it moves into its sixth and final season. Speaking on Fox’s upfronts press call, Collier said, “We looked at our priorities and were trying to prioritize giving Empire the send-off it deserves. The move [of Empire] to 9pm, made it a challenge because Star was always the lead-out from Empire and obviously we don’t have the 10pm hour, so it was another tough choice in a year where we were prioritizing Empire and obviously some of the other shows that we’ve put on the schedule.” The first three seasons of Empire aired on Fox at Wednesday at 9pm before moving to 8pm to accommodate Star in the 9pm hour. Empire will now move to Tuesdays behind The Resident for its final season. Star was cancelled after three seasons, although former Fox sibling 20th Century Fox TV is shopping the show to other platforms. Star’s cancellation was not unexpected and comes after Fox picked up a raft of new dramas. Star raked in solid numbers but hit a ratings low last November. The musical drama is expensive to produce, and its international sales have been challenging, which made the renewal decisions a bit more complex. Star followed three talented singers – running from their pasts and desperate for a new start – with ambitions of stardom, as they navigate the cutthroat music business. The show premiered in December 2016, with Empire as its lead-in, and starred Queen Latifah, Jude Demorest, Ryan Destiny, Brittany O’Grady, Amiyah Scott and Quincy Brown. Scott became the third openly transgender person to play a major trans character in a scripted television drama series. Star existed in the same musical universe as Empire and the two shows crossed over in the second season. The series also included a star-studded roster of guest stars including Lenny Kravitz, Naomi Campbell, Tyrese Gibson, Gladys Knight, Missy Elliott, Big Boi and Paris Jackson, who made her acting debut on the series. Daniels and Donaghy executive produce alongside Pamela Oas Williams. Karin Gist serves as showrunner and executive producer.