Hayley Atwell Says ABC Is To Blame For Agent Carter’s Cancellation
While Captain Marvel may be the first MCU character to be a lead in a solo film, fans know that the true first-lady of the MCU to get their own solo show/film was none other than Peggy Carter, played by Hayley Atwell. After stunning people in Captain America: The First Avenger with her powerful personality and strength, she then got a Marvel One-Shot, then a TV series in Agent Carter. However, after two seasons, and a really good cliffhanger for Season 03, the show was canceled.
Despite fans begging ABC for the show to come back, it hasn’t quite yet, and Hayley Atwell says the reason for the cancellation was because of ABC, and not Marvel as some have believed:
“It’s a shame the network canceled it and wanted to put me in something more mainstream. You know, Marvel didn’t want it to end. There’s lots of online campaigns to bring her back. Fans loved her. I think it was just a network economical thing: ‘Let’s put Hayley Atwell in something more mainstream that’s less genre-specific and see if we can get higher ratings,’” stated Atwell in an interview with The A.V. Club. “And unfortunately, that isn’t, as an actor, anything I’ve got control over. But maybe, in small ways, characters like Peggy Carter very slowly pave the way for it to be possible for other female-led narratives to exist.”
Ironically enough, though Agent Carter was canceled, her character lives on. She’s been seen in multiple MCU movies after The First Avenger ended, and has even been in animated series and soon, an issue of the Marvel comic Exiles.
But fans truly won’t be content until Agent Carter Season 03 happens.