Tires Got a Season 4 in Two Weeks. Will Ferrell Opened Bigger and Got Nothing.

written by Alex Hartley

September 3, 2026 3:10 pm

Tires Got a Season 4 in Two Weeks. Will Ferrell Opened Bigger and Got Nothing. — Image credit: IMDb

Netflix has formally greenlit a fourth season of Tires, roughly two weeks after season three landed — the fastest renewal the show has had. Deadline frames it as part of a two-year renewal. The reason is arithmetic: this is the cheapest show on Netflix's comedy shelf and the only one whose audience keeps growing.

Season three premiered August 13, 2026 and hit No. 5 on the global English TV chart the week of August 17 with 2.8M views and 13.8M hours — up 16% on its own first week and the highest the series has ever ranked.

The three-season climb

Season 1 (May 23, 2024, 6 eps) — 3.8M views in week one, No. 7 globally, 6.9M across a fortnight. Charted in 8 countries.
Season 2 (June 5, 2025, 12 eps) — 2.8M in week one, No. 6 in the US with 1.5M, then off the global chart. Charted in 6 countries.
Season 3 (August 13, 2026, 12 eps) — 2.4M in week one, No. 3 in the US, a 33% jump on season two's US debut; then 2.8M and No. 5 globally in week two.
Cumulative: over 45M views across three seasons.

The reviews went the other way from the usual

Tomatometer by season: 38% → 78% → 97%. Metascore 48 → 59. The season one consensus said the show "will need to rev up the inspiration to get real traction"; Variety's review was headlined "A Self-Funded Showcase That Spins Its Wheels." By season three RogerEbert.com was calling it one of Netflix's best comedies and saying it has "gotten undeniably smarter and more nuanced with each season."

One caveat worth stating plainly: that 97% rests on two counted reviews, against sixteen for season one. Critics largely stopped covering it even as the remaining ones warmed up.

Why the budget is the whole story

Season one was self-financed and finished before Netflix was involved — co-creator Steve Gerben has said Shane Gillis took a loan against future stand-up income to make it, against everyone's advice. It shot in a real working tire shop in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Netflix bought it. No budget figure has ever been published, and anyone quoting one is guessing.

Season two drew $5.5M in Pennsylvania film tax credits; season three shot across six Pennsylvania towns with more than 250 local vendors. The show has never stopped being cheap, and at Netflix renewals are decided on cost against performance.

The comparison Netflix is making internally

Will Ferrell's golf comedy The Hawk premiered July 16, 2026 and opened bigger than any season of Tires — 4.8M views, 24.7M hours, third most-watched English series that week, No. 1 in three countries, 1.5 billion cumulative minutes by early August. It also carries an estimated $5–7M per episode and took a $17.1M California tax credit, and it sits at 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. There is still no season two order. Deadline reports it costs roughly three times what Tires does.

The Hawk got the better opening number. Tires gets the renewal. That gap is the clearest statement Netflix has made this year about what it is actually optimising for.

The pattern holds elsewhere: The Four Seasons dropped 63% between seasons and got a third anyway; Leanne had the second-lowest debut of any recent Netflix comedy and was renewed inside a month. Cheap comedy has become the exception to Netflix's cancel-on-decline reflex.

What comes with season four

The January 2026 overall deal with Gillis and McKeever under Dad Sick Productions covers film, series and unscripted, plus two new Gillis stand-up specials. His 2023 special Beautiful Dogs has done 30M views by Netflix's own count. No date, episode count or production start has been announced for season four.