Never one to mince words, Kurt Sutter let Netflix know how he feels about the streamer’s decision to cancel The Abandons, a show he created. In his first public comments since Deadline broke the news earlier this month that Netflix was not proceeding with a second season of the period Western starring Lena Headey and Gillian Anderson, Sutter slammed the decision on Instagram.
“Dear Netflix, Next time fear compels you to choose the algorithm over a creator’s vision, remember how that choice unraveled a potentially beautiful project,” he wrote next to a movie poster-style announcement of the cancellation featuring headlines about the axing.
As Deadline reported in October 2014, Sutter, who also served as executive producer and showrunner, exited The Abandons just three weeks before the sprawling Western was slated to wrap production in Calgary over creative differences on the big-scope, big budget production, originally picked up for 10 episodes, with the order subsequently trimmed to seven episodes.
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In his post, Kurt alluded to his removal from the show while revealing an eye-popping price tag for the series, that, if accurate, would bring the budget to $21.4M per episode.
“FYI: Shareholders hate it when they learn more than $150 million was wasted on a single show trying to fix unnecessary mistakes of leadership failures – a destructive trend for both Hollywood and Wall Street,” he wrote.
Netflix declined comment.
According to Netflix’s What We Watched semi-annual report on July – December 2025 viewership, The Abandons logged 19.8M views in its first 28 days on the service after the Western premiered Dec. 4. Sutter used the figure in the illustration accompanying his post, along with the fact that season finale, which he wrote, ended on a big cliffhanger.
The Abandons spent 2 weeks in the Netflix Top 10 for English series, ranking as No.4 in its first two weeks of release with 7.4M and 7.6M views, respectively. Viewership quickly dissipated after that, with the drama dropping off the Top 10 and mustering 4.8M more views in the following 17 days.
Set in Washington Territory, circa 1854, The Abandons revolves around the matriarchs of two very different families, played by Headey and Anderson. Executive producers included Chris Keyser, Robert Askins, Stephen Surjik, Otto Bathurst, Emmy Grinwis, and Jon Paré.