‘Bad Crimes’ Starring Nicole Byer, Lauren Lapkus Canceled By Netflix Mid-Production, Producers Will Shop Elsewhere
Netflix has canceled adult animated comedy “Bad Crimes” mid-production, and the project is now being shopped around to other platforms.
“Bad Crimes” was being produced by comedy veterans Greg Daniels and Mike Judge (“King of the Hill”) with Nicole Byer and Lauren Lapkus set to voice the lead roles. The series is described as a dark comedy procedural following Kara (Byer) and Jennie (Lapkus), two FBI agents who travel across the country to solve grisly crimes while juggling their friendship, career ambitions, and as many men as possible.
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Netflix ordered “Bad Crimes” to series in January of this year. Nicole Silverberg of “Full Frontal with Samanta Bee” created the series, and serves as executive producer alongside Daniels, Judge and Dustin Davis under their recently formed Bandera Entertainment banner; Byer; Lapkus; and Erica Hayes (“Rick and Morty,” “Big Mouth”).
The cancellation comes after the departure of Mike Moon, who served as Netflix’s head of adult animation until he stepped down in July. He was replaced by Billy Wee, who was previously HBO Max’s senior vice president of comedy and animation. (Moon now works at Illumination, where he is forming a new label titled Moonlight.)
“Bad Crimes” isn’t the first animated project to get the ax from Netflix this year. In April, the streamer canceled its adaptation of the children’s comic series “Bone,” and in May, it canceled Ava DuVernay’s “Wings of Fire,” as well as the preschool series “Antiracist Baby” and the movie “With Kind Regards From Kindergarten.” The news of these projects’ endings came before Moon’s departure, during the initial fallout from the news that Netflix had a net loss of subscribers for the first time in a decade, causing a major stock price crash. However, sources told Variety at the time that the cancellations were based on creative considerations, not financial ones.
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