Bad News for Anyone Excited About The Furiosa Inspired Cartoon Cassius and Clay

FX Networks

In August, I got myself all riled up about a new show from Archer creator Adam Green. Cassius and Clay was primed to be a spiritual follow-up to Mad Max: Fury Road‘s Furiosa, an animated tale of two badass women traveling through an apocalyptic wasteland. Animated in the style of Archer, the titular ladies would be voiced by Lake Bell and Kaitlin Olson, with scripts coming from longtime Community writer Megan Ganz. It was, in my mind, the next great animated show that would end up in the pantheon with the likes of Rick and Morty and BoJack Horseman.

That excitement is gone now, as FXX cancelled.

Deadline reports that the project, which was originally optioned for a 10-episode season, has been cancelled, with no episodes being produced beyond the pilot. Which leads me to two questions:

1. Will I ever get to see this pilot? (Please.)
2. Why in the hell didn’t this go forward?

What was so bad about the pilot that has FX brass skittish about bringing it to fruition for a full season? The talent on-board is fantastic — the voice cast also included Susan Sarandon, JB Smoove, Kevin Michael Richardson, Jeffrey Tambor, Stephen Root, Katy Mixon and Robert Patrick — and last time I checked, Archer wasn’t an unpopular show. Then again, FX has always been weird about how they define success for their shows. They don’t release traditional ratings and plenty of their shows — I’m looking at you, Man Seeking Woman — seem to live on despite very little attention from social TV watchers. All of this makes the pre-cancellation of Cassius and Clay very curious. Something else had to be going on here. Perhaps there was a problem securing the voice cast, creative differences between network and the show’s team, or (somehow) the show just didn’t work.

No matter the reason, the show is on the shelf. While the Deadline report notes that there had been talk of redevelopment, let’s not get our hopes up. The network has already moved on with a new animated comedy pilot, an untitled project produced by (and starring) Louis C.K. and Albert Brooks.

Goodbye sweet Cassius and Clay, we hardly knew ye.