'Empire' canceled after season 6; Jussie Smollett Unlikely Return – Deadline

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The reign of Empire on Fox ends next year.

Just two weeks after Charlie Collier-led Fox Entertainment renewed Lee Daniels and Danny Strong's hip hop drama for a sixth season, and with Jussie Smollett's controversy on the way out, it was announced today's phenomenon "of Empire will be canceled once Season 6 is over.

"We are turning the last season into a big televised event, we are trying to put the guns on fire," proclaimed Collier at the call of Empire"The last 20 episodes of the series" You allow fans to look and have the end they deserve, "added the CEO.

Asked about the possibility that Smollett, legally challenged, could return for the final season, Collier dodged and responded with text reminiscent of last month's press release. "There is an option to have Jussie in the series but we have not planned that," he said, noting that the season 6 writers' room had not been opened yet.

Dropped less than a week after the fifth season of Empire wrapped, with its Casablanca-ish final, Monday's news also brings the filmed series from Chicago back to its original position on Tuesday at 9 pm It's a prime time team with a group also moved. The resident for the night for his third season.

The move to Tuesdays also puts the assessments already out of balance Empire right against NBC's heavyweight This is us.

For fans of the series directed by Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard, planning the sixth season of Empire We're still in the early stages, as the boss of Fox Entertainment basically said today, and the showrunner Brett Mahoney on May 8, which leaves ample time to wrap up correctly.

The ax of Empire the cancellation of the 20th Century Fox TV co-creator, Daniels, produced Star May 10, after three seasons that Collier described today as "difficult". The Strong EP'd and Disney's TCFTV produced a mid-season legal drama. Innocent proved Fox escaped the pink grid after a season on May 11.

Between lower expectations and the costs of doing business with a former brother or sister, Star and Innocent proved cancellations, as painful as they may be, were simple.

On the other hand, among other longstanding problems, Empire was bludgeoned this year by new audience records and by all the controversies surrounding the alleged hate crime committed on January 29 by Jamal Lyon, who reportedly represented Smollett, is now blamed on the Chicago police and prosecutors.

Empire

Several weeks ago, things seemed to be going even longer when key options were chosen, such as the Lyon music tycoon Lyon, the patriarch of the matriarch Cookie (Henson), Lucious, (Howard), Bryshere Y. Gray, son on the screen. and Trai Byers, as well as Gabourey Sidibe and Nicole Ari Parker were sewn last month for a new season, as I understand it.

After portraying Jamal Lyon, his openly homosexual son, in the series since his debut in early 2015, Fox Entertainment and 20th Century Fox TV, now owned by Disney, have "negotiated an extension of Jussie Smollett's option for season 6 ".

However, with Smollett's character already writing about the last two episodes of Season 5 five months ago, while the situation around him was getting more and more complicated and that the Chicago Police investigation was taking place. Was intensifying, the channel and the studio added on April 30 that "at that time no plans for Jamal's character to come back to Empire."

Now, there are no more projects for Empire to return to Fox past his next cycle. A fact that would have seemed absurd just a few years ago.

In its first and second seasons, the blockbuster attracted a large audience from almost every facet of the American public. In fact, break the status quo of a steady decline for some time Empire was on a winning trajectory of growth almost every week in the odds to new heights.

Fox's second best drama after 9-1-1, but the peaks of those early days have long passed. Today's cancellation is a bit of a surprise after the promotional spotlight of March 20 on the famous "New Fox" billed as a crown jewel once the $ 71.3 billion acquisition by Disney has been finalized. been there for a moment.

In the end, having scored more seasons than most in the Peak TV era today, Empire prey to forces mainly outside its own small screen borders.

The show was partially reduced by the combination of the Big 4's streaming and delayed viewing services and their recently approved Big Bucks ratings, which are hovering over Fox's core assets, such as the TCFTV studio. .

The Murdoch-owned Fox Network has fulfilled its decision to fill a good portion of its two hours per night of prime time shows with expensive, high-performance sports like the NFL and WWE Smackdown.

Landing on this increasingly fragile structure for the future of Empire like a fatal ceiling that falls on Game of thronesCersei Lannister and his brother Jaime were the scandal of Smollett's assaults that swirled again and sank into Chicago's bitter politics.

Insisting on his innocence during the early morning incident in January, Smollett, guilty for the first time of his crime, shot the straw with overwhelmed prosecutors. 16 crime charges were erased and the case dismissed.

The actor was facing years in prison for allegedly organizing this racist and homophobic attack on himself at the end of the first month of the year. An agreement worth $ 10,000 and a credit for 20 hours of community service recently credited.

An almost immediate wave of protest has emerged between early and empathetic advocate Donald Trump, future ex-mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago PD, the lawyer of Cook County's first assistant, Joseph Magats, quickly tried to reverse the situation for his office. telling the local media that he thought Smollett was guilty of having organized the attack himself.

After hearing the case, Lawyer Kim Foxx of Cook County State, being strangely challenged by critics, Magats also said that the agreement and the Sealing the record did not exonerate Smollett – AKA, all of which was only a public relations nightmare. we never really woke up.

Since then, new lawsuits have taken place, the city attacking Smollett after the actor refused to pay back $ 130,000 for the costs of the investigation. The alleged collaborators of the attack, Ola and Abel Osundairo, sued Smollett's lawyers, Mark Geragos and Tina Glandian, for defamation on April 23.

As an exclusively revealed Deadline on April 24, Smollett received the open support of Henson, Howard and other prominent actors in a correspondence pleading for the return of the actor and his character to Empire Daniels, Strong, Disney TV Studios, Dana Walden, president of ABC Entertainment, and Fox Entertainment president, Michael Thorn, the long letter of April 19 was not enough, as we know now, to a resurgent institute in favor of Smollett – or for Empire on long period either.

EmpireThe sixth and final season is supposed to start in mid-September.

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