One factor that led to this cancellation is that Starz does not own House of Ashur. The situation is tricky. Lionsgate owned Starz and Ashur at the start of last year, but they spun Starz off while retaining the rights to Ashur. Starz basically told its former masters — “Eh, no dice. We ain’t getting into the position of being forced to pay you for something you originally created for us.”
That left Lionsgate in the position of trying to peddle it elsewhere.
Lionsgate Television is in the process of trying to secure another network or streaming service that could potentially save the series.
Is it marketable? Frankly, that’s not going to be an easy sell. Ashur is not family-friendly fare for general audiences. Lionsgate would have to find somebody interested in acquiring an unabashedly sexual and violent series that targets a niche audience. There hasn’t been much of a market for that kind of fare at the big streamers recently.
That’s a shame as a fan of what we see on here, but hardly a surprise as I never watched the show. I’m not sure how much it cost to produce, but maybe another low level streamer could pick it up just for one more season…
After all, Community lucked out with Yahoo.