You may have noticed recently that The Killing is no longer available on Netflix. With no word from Netflix about the status of the show, the series appears to have vanished without a trace. This begs the question: What happened to The Killing on Netflix?
The Killing is a detective crime drama that originally premiered on AMC. After two seasons AMC decided to cancel the series, but after a renegotiation between FOX and Netflix, a third season was developed. Once again AMC decided to cancel the series in September of 2013. Two months later in November of 2013, it was announced that Netflix had ordered a fourth season of six episodes to give the series its conclusion.
After over four years of being on Netflix, The Killing has mysteriously vanished from the Netflix library.
Who owns the distribution rights to The Killing?
It isn’t very clear as to who actually owns the rights to stream The Killing. It is possible that Netflix only had a temporary contract for the exclusive rights to stream the show. As AMC was the distributor for the first three seasons it may still, in fact, belong to them but no confirmation has been given on this.
The only other studio outside of AMC and Netflix that was involved happened to be FOX. With production of the show itself with FOX Television Studios, they may now be the network that has the exclusive rights to stream The Killing. This would make sense as to why the show was removed from the library as a very large portion of FOX content was removed after the contract between them and Netflix ended in mid-2017.
But isn’t The Killing a Netflix Original?
Yes and No. Only the very last season counts as a Netflix Original as it was a continuation rather than an Original show. The best example of this would be like canceled shows such as Designated Survivor and Lucifer. Both shows were canceled but Netflix picked them back up and will continue to produce the shows for the foreseeable future.
Will The Killing return to Netflix?
We don’t have any news or information from Netflix to suggest The Killing is returning. If there is some form of legal dispute as to who currently owns the distribution rights, then it is being kept very quiet.
At the moment the show appears to be no longer streaming in the USA, Canada or the United Kingdom.
Only Australia and New Zealand are streaming all 4 seasons. Japan is streaming The Killing but only the last season Netflix ordered.
Does this set a precedent for other shows Netflix has continued?
For all we know this could be the very first and very last Netflix Original that has been removed from the content library. But the implications of this are massive as Netflix has never revealed whether or not shows they have picked up for continuation are only with the streaming service temporarily. While the show has been removed for now, this doesn’t mean we won’t see it return.
Are you disappointed to The Killing is no longer on Netflix? Let us know in the comments below!
