Jeremy Renner has had more luck than most with his franchises. While we expect Mission:Impossible and The Avengers to be huge, he also found a great deal of success with 2013's Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. The Tommy Wirkola-directed film got terrible reviews and was pretty stupid overall, but it killed worldwide with more than $200M on a relatively cheap budget, and a sequel was set in motion for next year. However, those plans are apparently off the table.
According to Deadline, Paramount has decided to ditch a follow-up to the film and instead focus on turning it into a cable TV series. Obviously, you won't find Renner or co-star Gemma Arterton in that, so it looks like they both just lost out on at least one major studio franchise.
This situation seems to have come out of nowhere, especially since Bruno Aveillan had already been named the sequel's director and Wirkola had completed a screenplay. But Paramount, who have set forth on a Jack Ryan TV series as well, clearly see this as a viable business model.
