‘Low Winter Sun’ Canceled By AMC

AMC has canceled its freshman drama Low Winter Sun.

The network confirmed the cancellation to Variety om Friday.

Low Winter Sun, which was based on the British two-part miniseries of the same name, debuted in August. Even with the final eight episodes of Breaking Bad as a lead-in, Low Winter Sun failed to attract a substantial audience, drawing only 2.51 million viewers for its premiere. Viewership dropped significantly with the following episodes, with the two-part season finale on October 6 drawing a series low of 630,000 viewers.

Low Winter Sun starred Mark Strong and Lennie James as Detroit homicide detectives who kill a fellow cop and stage his death to look like a suicide.

Last month, AMC CEO Josh Sapan said the series could benefit from “binge-watching,” which helped Breaking Bad double its audience between seasons four and five, and then more than double the audience between the first and second parts of the fifth season.

“There is, as a consequence of the technology, this new phenomenon that really does seem to be occurring,” Sapan said. “We have to be very careful about not being precipitous in our judgment of TV shows as to whether they can build a head of steam. So as it relates to Low Winter Sun, we’re evaluating.”

He added, “I thought that the last few episodes were quite different and better and more urgent than the first part of the season. I think the backdrop is sort of interesting. We’ll have to evaluate exactly what we do and how much benefit the mid-season/off-season effect can be. But it’s not to be underestimated.”

Lennie James, who is best known for his role as Mr. Hawkins in Jericho, and the one who played Morgan Jones in two episodes of The Walking Dead, was recently cast as James Brown’s father, Joseph, in the Tate Taylor-directed biopic Get On Up. 42 star Chadwick Boseman plays the Godfather of Soul, who died in 2006 at 73 from congestive heart failure resulting from complications of pneumonia.