EXCLUSIVE: After a five-year build-up, it was a short run for Bad Robot’s 1970s crime drama Duster as HBO Max is not proceeding with a second season of the series from J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan. The news comes less than a week after the Season 1 finale debuted on the platform.
It is not entirely surprising because Duster, starring Josh Holloway and Rachel Hilson, wasn’t able to generate a lot of buzz and viewer interest. Those who tuned in, largely liked what they saw — Duster is averaging 92% among critics and 83% among general viewers on Rotten Tomatoes. The series from Warner Bros. and Abrams’ studio-based Bad Robot also remains in the daily Top 10 on HBO Max but it has not been able to get into the Nielsen Top 10 for streaming originals and barely cracked Luminate’s list of Top 50 streaming originals in its fourth week at the last #50 spot.
“While HBO Max will not be moving forward with a second season of Duster, we are so grateful to have had the chance to work with the amazingly talented co-creators J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan, and our partners at Bad Robot and Warner Bros. Television,” HBO Max said in a statement to Deadline. “We are tremendously proud of this series led by Josh Holloway and Rachel Hilson and we thank them along with our cast and crew for their incredible collaboration and partnership.”
Duster, which reunited Lost co-creator/executive producer Abrams and star Holloway, was originally ordered in April 2020. It filmed awhile ago, so the options on the cast already had expired and were not extended (which is not highly unusual for HBO Max), sources said.
Seeing the writing on the wall, I hear WBTV and Bad Robot quietly shopped Duster to other platforms where the adrenaline-heavy series could’ve been a better fit but the effort was unsuccessful.
The cancellation leaves The Pitt as the only current HBO Max original series.
Duster follows Nina (Hilson), the first Black female FBI agent, who in 1972 heads to the Southwest and recruits a gutsy getaway driver (Holloway), the first in a bold effort to take down a growing crime syndicate.
Keith David, Sydney Elisabeth, Greg Grunberg, Camille Guaty, Asivak Koostachin, Adriana Aluna Martinez, and Benjamin Charles Watson also starred.
“J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan delivered a thrilling, multi-dimensional crime drama in Duster, with textured characters that took the audience back to the 1970s in a new and innovative way,” WBTV said in a statement to Deadline. “Those characters were brought to life by a wonderful team led by Josh, Rachel, and an extremely talented ensemble cast, along with an expert crew behind the scenes. We are incredibly proud of the show, and while we wish this journey could continue, we are thankful to our partners at HBO Max for the opportunity to tell Jim and Nina’s story.”
The first two episodes of Duster were written by Abrams and Morgan and directed by and executive produced by Steph Green. The series was executive produced by Abrams and Rachel Rusch Rich for Bad Robot and Morgan for TinkerToy Productions.
As HBO Max canceled Duster, the streamer today picked up The Big Bang Theory spinoff series Stuart Fails To Save The Universe, also from WBTV.
