Michael Mann, the director of HBO series, Luck, blames TMZ for the show getting cancelled. In the following clip you can hear Mann telling the cast and crew that the decision was reached by HBO after TMZ and “the media” spun unfair stories after a third horse died on the set.

TMZ fired back by saying that they didn’t spin anything and addressed the facts about the situation: 1)THREE horses died on their watch; 2) Horse #3 was euthanized on the set … and production continued a few hours later AND 3) Publicist Karen Jones initially LIED to TMZ about the story … in an effort to stall them from publishing.

TMZ says that their bottom line on the subject is that the show would not have been cancelled if the horses were still alive.

“The Dead Horse Series” was created by TMZ in reaction to several controversial decisions made by the crew of Luck. The entertainment news outfit wrote a story titled “No Moment of Silence for Dead Horse” that criticized the crew for continuing to film soon after one horse died.

Mann explained to the cast and crew that the decision was also made to preserve the show’s integrity, and didn’t want the attention that the horse controversy has been getting to overshadow the efforts of the cast and crew. Another contributing factor was that HBO couldn’t guarantee that another animal wouldn’t die.

The series premiered on January 29th; despite its cancellation, all of the first season’s episodes will air. Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte held prominent roles in the dramatic series.

Fans are very disappointed that the show was cancelled while others tweet that Luck should have been nixed before a third horse died: