Summary

• The Gifted was canceled before season 3, but the two released seasons of the show can be viewed on Disney+ along with other X-Men spinoffs.
• The show didn't get picked up by Disney for season 3 seemingly due to low ratings, despite starting strong.
• The show helps provide a better idea of why Disney wanted the X-Men rights.

Unfortunately, The Gifted season 3 won’t be happening, although Disney+ has made the X-Men show available to stream. The Gifted is the brainchild of X-Men super-fan and Burn Notice creator Matt Nix, and aired its first two (and only) seasons on Fox between 2017 and 2019. Described by Nix as “Running On Empty with mutants,” Marvel's The Gifted follows suburban parents Reed and Caitlin Strucker (Stephen Moyer and Amy Acker) as they go on the run after discovering their teenage kids Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind) and Andy (Percy Hynes White) have mutant abilities.

The Gifted occurs outside Fox's X-Men universe and the MCU timeline, set in an alternate universe/time in which the X-Men have disappeared following a mutant terrorist attack that prompted the U.S. government to enact harsh anti-mutant laws. Despite starting strong with a well-received first season – and soon returning with a sophomore series — The Gifted was canceled before season 3 could happen. Here’s everything known about why Fox decided to cancel Marvel's The Gifted, and whether the show has a place in the MCU's future X-Men plans.

The Gifted Season 2 Suffered From Low Ratings

Alongside receiving generally solid reviews, Marvel's The Gifted proved to be a solid ratings performer during its first season on Fox — yet it ultimately wasn't enough for The Gifted season 3 to push through. The series saw an average of around 8.3 million viewers across linear and digital platforms, and no doubt coaxed Fox into committing to the second season of the X-Men spinoff. However, The Gifted season 2 experienced a dramatic drop in ratings, especially linear ratings, which totted up to just 3.3 million viewers.

It’s thought the show’s lack of linear ratings success during its second season was the major driving force behind Fox’s decision to cancel it a few weeks after The Gifted season 2 finale aired. This is despite the plot being clearly far from its intended conclusion — the show didn't even get the chance to clarify what happened to the X-Men in Gifted's timeline.

The Gifted season 2 aired its finale in 2019.

The Gifted Didn’t Get Picked Up By Disney

Marvel's The Gifted may have aired on the non-Disney-owned Fox broadcast network, but it was co-produced by 20th Century Fox Television and Marvel Television. Both those production companies are owned by Disney, which means that The Gifted is also a Disney-owned property. There was hope that The Gifted season 3 might get picked up by another Disney-owned platform like Hulu, Freeform, or Disney+, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

That said, The Gifted's existing seasons can be viewed on Disney+, alongside other X-Men spinoffs Legion and the New Mutants movie. Notably, this seems to indicate that Disney and Marvel plans to reboot the entire X-Men universe (already-existing Deadpool & Wolverine plans notwithstanding). Unfortunately, this means that the chances of The Gifted continuing as part of Disney and the MCU's slate of upcoming series were always slim.

Why Can’t Modern X-Men Properties Get It Right

The Gifted season 3 not pushing through on Disney isn't surprising, as the latest X-Men properties haven't stuck the landing, even producing flops like X-Men Apocalypse and X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Movies and shows like Logan and Legion were of high quality and held up under scrutiny.

However, people don't seem to be as interested or entertained by the latest installments compared to the halcyon days of X-Men and X-Men 2. The superhero films started strong, with the X-Men franchise leading the Marvel pack alongside Sam Raimi's Spider-Man in the very beginning. But interest in the latest movies has dropped considerably, which could be due to a couple of factors.

First off, the latest X-Men films focused on the wrong characters. While the stories of X-Men's main cast have been told, people grew accustomed to the original superhero lineup. Public attention waned as the franchise decided to take on too many new heroes at the expense of the original ones. Second, Fox had a tendency to overstuff their products — which was a complaint geared toward The Gifted. Few viewers want to sift through countless exposition scenes to find an excuse for the action that unfolds. Sadly, because of these reasons, The Gifted remains canceled and its season 2 cliffhanger is set to be forever unresolved.

Shows Like The Gifted Reveal Why Disney Wanted The X-Men Rights

Even without The Gifted season 3, the show reveals a lot about the X-Men universe that Fox created, and how Fox spun an entire MCU-rivaling universe from a single Marvel Comics property. Even Sony never managed to do this with its existing lineup of Spider-Man movies. In the current Marvel Cinematic Universe-dominated era of the superhero genre, it's easy to forget that Fox's X-Men "multiverse" was, at one point, a powerhouse of potential for adapting stories from one of Marvel Comics' most beloved super teams.

What makes The Gifted special is that it began to dip into that potential even more than the X-Men movies, and its faulty but ultimately brilliant twist on the source material shows why Disney grabbed the X-Men rights. Marvel Studios' X-Men reboot problems are a small price to pay for the opportunity to finally get the X-Men right. However, this does strongly suggest The Gifted season 3 is unlikely to ever emerge given the new plans for the X-Men's on-screen future going forward.

Even if the MCU does pick up The Gifted's characters and stories, it's unlikely to be as simple as a renewal of The Gifted season 3. With the Multiverse Saga in full swing, however, it wouldn't be that surprising if the respective fates of the Purifiers, the Mutant Underground, and the Struckers somehow factor into the existence of mutantkind in the MCU, even if it's just for a cameo.