The animated series "Spider-Man Unlimited" was one the best Spider-Man series after Spider-Man: The Animated Series. The concept of Counter-earth and the beastials was great.
But the show ended on a cliffhanger and season 2 never came. Why was this show canceled? Or was the cliffhanger actually the end?
The show was cancelled
"Spiderman Unlimited" aired in 1999, when fox had the rights to the show.
Sadly it ended on a tragic cliffhanger and Fox themselves eventually commented and had stated they cancelled this show in 2001 due to poor viewership and because of the popular shows like Pokemon and Digimon overshadowing this show.
I can't find official wording but I found other credible websites that have put their word in.
According to Nerdist
Batman Beyond premiered around this time, and with its rich backstory from Batman: The Animated Series, combined with new original characters, it was the superior show. Spider-Man Unlimited tried to cash in on that futuristic, techno trend, but the execution was hokey and forced. That’s why the series ended on a cliffhanger.
According to Marvel Animated Universe Wiki
The show was vastly overshadowed by the anime Pokémon, which began airing at the same time and garnered far higher ratings. The series had been doing well on its own, pulling in mid-to-high 3.0 ratings, airing against Pokemon. Despite only airing three episodes, the series was put on a two-month hiatus following "Where Evil Nests", where one month later it was announced that the series was being cancelled.
Rick Ungar, who had then recently been named president of the newly formed Marvel Character Group making him responsible for Marvel's television animation projects, stated that Fox needed to devote more time to shows that could compete with Pokemon.
Fox Kids had been in fourth place the previous year behind Kids' WB, Nickelodeon, and ABC but had managed to move back up to third. Fox kept shuffling the shows around the times, putting The Avengers: United They Stand in this show's slot, with the programming changing from week to week with only Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, Digimon, and Beast Machines: Transformers maintained their timelots. Without a steady timeslot, audiences had a difficult time watching it week-to-week.
Between Marvel's bankruptcy problems, the comparatively low ratings, and fact that it fulfilled the thirteen-episode contract need the series was picked up for further episodes. Although the season one ended on a cliffhanger and several scripts were written for a second, no more came from the series.
This was addressed in an interview with Rick Ungar, head of the newly formed Marvel Character Group. In brief he claims that it was because Fox had too many shows in production at the same time and were losing brand focus. They wanted to put more production effort into their big-ticket series (especially The X-Men CGI reboot and The Avengers animated series) in order to compete with Pokémon, which meant taking budget and crew away from other shows like Spider-Man: Unlimited
“What’s happening is Fox is dealing with the realities of Pokémon as a competitor,” Ungar stated while eating his breakfast. “They felt they needed to devote more time to those types of shows, which I understand. At the same time, you’ll notice that The Avengers came on last weekend.
“What’s happening is Fox’s Saturday programming has been really fluid. It hasn’t been the same from week to week. The real problem is they have a ton of really good shows over there and they are trying to find the right formula to be competitive. I think they’re getting there from what I’m seeing.”
He stated categorically that it wasn't about the ratings.
“From the looks of things, Spider-Man will probably come back sometime between December and February,” says Ungar. “It’s coming off had nothing to do with the ratings. In fact, if you saw them, you’d see the show was doing rather well. It was pulling ratings in the mid-to-high 3.0’s and it was going head-to-head against Pokémon.”
