{"id":3400,"date":"2025-08-21T20:14:29","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T20:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/?p=3400"},"modified":"2025-08-21T20:14:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T20:14:29","slug":"before-ncis-michael-weatherly-starred-in-a-canceled-james-cameron-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/?p=3400","title":{"rendered":"Before NCIS, Michael Weatherly Starred In A Canceled James Cameron Series"},"content":{"rendered":"
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James Cameron burst onto the scene with the sci-fi action classic \u201cThe Terminator,\u201d and he has since parlayed that success into a very prosperous Hollywood career. Cameron\u2019s \u201cAvatar\u201d made history by becoming the highest-grossing film of all time on two occasions, while his\u00a0sequel, \u201cAvatar: The Way of Water,\u201d is right up there with it in terms of profitability and currently ranks as the third highest-grossing movie ever. Elsewhere, \u201cTitanic\u201d \u2014 Cameron\u2019s award-winning disaster blockbuster starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as lovers on the titular sinking ship \u2014 occupies the fourth spot on that same list. Needless to say, the man knows how to write, direct, and produce hits, although even he isn\u2019t immune to projects that fail to gain the interest of the masses.<\/p>\n

In 2000, Cameron and Charles H. Eglee co-created \u201cDark Angel,\u201d a short-lived post-apocalyptic sci-fi action series that was canceled on a cliffhanger ending after two seasons on Fox. Its story follows Max (Jessica Alba), a genetically enhanced super soldier who escapes from a lab and accepts a job as a courier (while also moonlighting as a cat burglar and valiant warrior in the fight for justice), as she tries to evade the people who made her. \u201cNCIS\u201d veteran Michael Weatherly also stars in the show as Logan, a moralistic cyber journalist who aids Max in her quest to stop corruption. Romantic sparks also fly between the pair, but getting to settle down is difficult in a post-apocalyptic world where powerful institutions want to find and capture them.<\/p>\n

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On paper, \u201cDark Angel\u201d has all of the ingredients to be a hit, but it wasn\u2019t meant to be in the early 2000s. With that in mind, let\u2019s find out why it was canceled by Fox.<\/p>\n

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Why Fox canceled James Cameron\u2019s Dark Angel<\/h3>\n

A high-concept sci-fi series from the mind of James Cameron \u2014 not to mention, one that boasted a rising star in the form of Jessica Alba \u2014 should have been a big hit. For a while, the future looked bright for \u201cDark Angel,\u201d too, as the first season was moderately successful. Unfortunately, the second season was moved to the infamous Friday night death slot by Fox (the same one that got Bruce Campbell\u2019s sci-fi Western \u201cThe Adventures of Brisco County Jr.\u201d canceled a few years earlier), and the rest is history.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, \u201cDark Angel\u201d was an expensive show to produce, and it had a history of going over its production budget. Despite this, Fox greenlit a third season only to pull the plug on the show shortly afterwards, which Cameron attributed to network executives panicking after losing ad revenue. As he recalled in Frank Garcia and Mark Phillips\u2019 \u201cScience Fiction Television Series: 1990-2004: Histories, Casts, And Credits For 58 Shows:\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir entire annual revenues were cut down two-thirds of what it had been. They didn\u2019t know how to cope. It\u2019s not like they took us off and put a cheaper show in our place. It was just a knee-jerk, \u2018Try anything!’\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the cancellation of \u201cDark Angel\u201d didn\u2019t completely bury it. The show has gone on to develop a cult fan base, and it regularly appears on lists dedicated to series that were canceled far too soon. Still, it would have been nice to see Cameron and co. get to end the story on their own terms, as opposed to the season 2 finale, which raises more questions than answers.<\/p>\n

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James Cameron burst onto the scene with the sci-fi action classic \u201cThe Terminator,\u201d and he has since parlayed that success into a very prosperous Hollywood career. Cameron\u2019s… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3402,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3400\/revisions\/3402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}