Thursday’s cancellation of Power Book II: Ghost caught many people by surprise, including series star Michael Rainey Jr.
Starz sent out a press release this morning saying the crime drama would end after its upcoming fourth season.
Rainey, who leads the cast as Tariq St. Patrick, went on Instagram Live a short time later to say he had no clue the series would be ending.
“I didn’t know s–t, bro. I found out the same time y’all found out,” the actor said in a video recorded while he was at the gym.
Related Story: ‘BMF’ Used 50 Cent’s Connections to Book Season 3 Guest Stars
Still, Rainey was relatively upbeat — considering the news — and told his followers he has other projects on the horizon with co-star Gianni Paolo, who plays Brayden Weston on Ghost.
“Don’t trip y’all. I got a lot of new s–t coming, me and Gianni are writing s–t,” Rainey said. “We got our own stuff in the making.”
Rainey mentioned “higher-ups” at Starz and said it seems “they just wanna do s–t their way.”
The actor deleted the video, but The Shade Room captured the footage and reposted it on Instagram.
Gianni Paolo left a comment on the outlet’s post, writing: “My brother for life. Stay tuned for what we got coming next.”
Starz did not immediately respond to Urban Hollywood 411‘s request for comment on Rainey’s remarks.
50 Cent, who is an executive producer on the show, posted a news article on Instagram about Rainey being “blindsided” by the cancellation. “Yeah because @michaelraineyjr don’t answer his phone,” the hip-hop mogul captioned the post.
The show’s season 4 cast includes Mary J. Blige as “Monet Tejada,” Cliff “Method Man” Smith as “Davis MacLean,” Woody McClain as “Cane Tejada,” Lovell Adams-Gray as “Dru Tejada,” LaToya Tonodeo as “Diana Tejada,” Alix Lapri as “Effie Morales,” Larenz Tate as “Rashad Tate,” Caroline Chikezie as “Noma,” Lightskinkeisha as “Brushaundria Carmichael,” and Michael Ealy as “Detective Don Carter.”
Power Book II: Ghost is among the highest-rated shows on Starz.
The season 3 premiere set a viewership record in March 2023, after bringing in 5.8 million multi-platform viewers in its first three days.
In a press release at the time, Starz said the crime drama scored the biggest premiere weekend ever for the network.
But it seems other issues factored into the cancellation.
Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsh said this week that the network will bring more new shows to the screen, instead of extending some current series, which become more expensive to produce with each season.
“When seasons go from one to two to three to four, three to four is where the cost really pops because most of the actors get bigger raises, and you have to really manage that. So, you have to have in your portfolio of development shows that can actually replace shows as they get into later seasons,” Hirsh said at a Deutsche Bank media conference Wednesday as reported by Deadline.
The fourth and final season of Power Book II: Ghost will premiere in two parts.
The first part debuts on June 7, followed by a second installment three months later on Sept. 6 at midnight on the Starz app. Both parts will air on the Starz network at 8:00 PM ET/PT in the U.S. and 9:00 PM ET in Canada.
Discover more from Urban Hollywood 411
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
