Sense8's international production is also an organizational nightmare, which means production takes a long, long time. This explains the two-year delay between the first and second seasons, with the show filming at over a dozen places on four continents. In addition to driving up the cost of hiring crew members, this long production, coupled with pre-production and post-production, meant that Netflix had to shell out a lot of cash to keep the big cast on contract.

They decided not to do this after the completion of season two, letting the casts' options expire to save up on expensive talent-holding fees. This meant ordering a third season would have required renegotiating new contracts with the entire of the cast, an added headache on top of an already difficult production. Letting the casts' options expire also meant that actors had the chance to sign on to other projects, and, while none of the eight main cast members did, supporting cast member Naveen Andrews joined the CBS pilot Instinct, meaning he only would have been available for guest starring roles on a potential third season.

Although Netflix did reportedly start looking into renewing the casts' contracts for a third season, the amount of time in pre-production, production, and post-production just made Sense8 harder to produce operationally and continued to drive up costs, making it more tempting to take the series off the air.