The Warner Bros. Discovery merger has claimed many victims with various movies and shows getting axed, all in the interest of cutting costs and embracing a new creative strategy. One new direction that will be taken with HBO Max is cutting back on programming aimed at families and children. After Gordita Chronicles was axed after one season as a result of this change, it was soon after reported that Little Ellen had been canceled as well after two seasons on the streaming platform.
Getting canceled is never a good thing, but it’s even worse when there are completed episodes that will now never see the light of day. 20 episodes had been produced for planned third and fourth seasons of Little Ellen, but with the show’s cancelation, all of those episodes have been shelved. Worse yet, the first two seasons that previously streamed on HBO Max have been removed, almost as if the show never existed.
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In a new interview with Variety, series co-creator Jennifer Skelly opened up about Little Ellen getting axed. According to Skelly, the show’s team was told in June that the third season had simply been pushed back to 2023. It wasn’t long after when they learned that the show had been outright canceled and yanked from HBO Max completely. That was “devastating,” as Skelly explains, describing how the show fell victim to the streaming wars.
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Skelly goes on to explain how a lot of people have been negatively affected by the cancelation. She feels for them, but she also doesn’t see this causing other creatives to be leery of working with Warner Bros. Discovery in the future, as this kind of thing will certainly be considered in contract negotiations going forward.
Of course, it probably hasn’t helped that Ellen DeGeneres has suffered through her own unrelated controversies in recent years, especially regarding allegations of a “toxic workplace” behind the scenes of her talk show. That may have made the new brass at Warner Bros. Discovery more apprehensive about moving forward with a cartoon show based on the celebrity. With her talk show also ending this year, it’s possible the Ellen brand may have been seen as less valuable than it had been when the show was first ordered to series at HBO Max.
Time will tell if Little Ellen ever shows back up at a new home, but as of now, it’s not streaming anywhere.