Apple TV+ has canceled Charlie Hunnam’s “Shantaram,” ending the 12-episode drama thriller after one season. The streaming service said in December 2022 that the series would not return for a second season.

That decision closed the door on a project that had been years in the making and carried a reported $100 million budget. Hunnam played Lin Ford, a former paramedic, heroin addict and bank robber who escapes from an Australian prison and heads to 1980s Bombay to build a new life and seek redemption.

“Shantaram” arrived in 2022 with the scale of an event series and the burden of expectations that came with it. It was adapted from Gregory David Roberts’ novel and followed an Australian fugitive trying to remake himself in India, a premise built for sweeping television and expensive production. Filming began in October 2019 in Australia and India, then ran into repeated setbacks that delayed the finish and pushed the shoot across three countries.

Production was suspended in February 2020 after two episodes had been shot. The work was disrupted by the Indian monsoon season and by a writing backlog after showrunner Eric Warren Singer left the project. Filming resumed briefly in India in late 2020, but COVID-19 restrictions moved the production to Thailand before it finally wrapped in late 2021.

The response was mixed, which helps explain why the cancellation landed with little surprise. The series has a 57% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but an 86% audience Popcornmeter rating, suggesting viewers were more generous than critics. Collider said Hunnam had “never been better,” while RogerEbert.com praised the show’s “vibrant international cast of characters” even as it called the 12 episodes “more than a little bloated.” Decider described it as a “slow-moving thriller,” and Slant Magazine said “the series should have been a movie.”

There was never any official reason given for ending the show, but the combination of enormous cost, long delays and a divided reception made the outcome hard to miss. For Hunnam, “Shantaram” became a rare lead role on a big, prestige-minded streaming drama. For Apple TV+, it became a costly experiment that stopped after one season.