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Dead Day is dead at Peacock: The streamer is scrapping the comic book adaptation from Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec, our sister site Variety reports, despite it landing a series order last year.
Based on the AfterShock comic book series created by Ryan Parrott, the show would have followed “an ensemble of characters as they navigate the annual ‘dead day,’ when for one night the dead come back to complete unfinished business — be that to celebrate a night back on earth or to torment the living,” per the official synopsis. Williamson and Plec, who previously teamed up on The Vampire Diaries, were set to be writers, executive producers and co-showrunners on the project.
Peacock ordered Dead Day to series in January 2022, with Williamson and Plec saying at the time: “We have been looking for a project to do together, and Dead Day has all the ingredients we love as storytellers. Love, death, thrills and tears — and we know Susan Rovner and her team at Peacock is the perfect fit for this project.”
It’s been a tough month for Plec at Peacock: Vampire Academy, which she also wrote and executive-produced, was cancelled by the streamer last week after airing just a single season.
Im actually a bit sad by this cause I thought the idea was semi interesting other than more vampire centered projects jp overlooks
I feel like Peacock hates Julie Plec cuz first Vampire Academy and now this.
yeah clearly something went down lately with jp and peacock
Yeah, and the NBC also did not simply put ‘The Endgame’ on Peacock.
just cancel Peacock
They probably realized how bad Julie Plec’s writing really is.
Not just her writing, her showrunning is horrendous. Her odd fascination with ‘bad boy’ characters at the expense of pretty much all cohesive storytelling is adolescent and annoying. Maybe Peacock realized she was tween trapped in a middle aged body.
Well said!!!
KW and JP (especially) have to stop trying to make everything they do “Buffy”!! They tried it with the TVDU, RNM and VA, but it didn’t stick. BE ORIGINAL. (Ps don’t come for me, we’re all entitled to our opinions).
To be fair, Vampire Academy is a book series, just like The Vampire Diaries was. Everything after Buffy is going to be seen as “trying to be Buffy,” since BTVS paved the way. I don’t necessarily disagree with your sentiment, but the premises themselves aren’t the issue. It’s how they’re being executed.
I do find it odd that all of JP’s projects are about vampires, witches or aliens though (that’s literally what it says on her Twitter bio lol). She definitely seems stuck on that genre. And, her adaptations don’t really bring anything new to the table to do justice to the source material.
I didnt entirely see vamp academy and roswell so maybe there were instances but I dont recall tvdu trying to be like buffy. The closest I recall is dark josie was obvious copycat of dark willow.
I kind of wonder if a reason for the scrap is networks are just getting tired of the YA genre and dont want to end up like cw which was the king of that genre and now look what has become of it.
Maybe im looking too into it but it seems there are only a few successes from the genre-stranger things, cobra kai, You, etc
Yeah… I think they are giving up on YA.
Agreed. The YA genre is on the way out, thank god.
However, the CW was never profitable to begin with. It was never designed to be, which is why it’s been operating on a loss since the start. The network never made any money, because that wasn’t why it was created. It was a merger between CBS and Warner Bros. to shuffle productions to that had nowhere else to go. That’s why they almost never canceled anything. lol
Now that CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery have their own streaming services, they no longer need the CW. That’s why they wanted out and sold most of their shares. The CW’s streaming deals with Netflix were the only way their shows were making any money whatsoever. And, those Netflix deals expired. Most of them, anyway. CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery had no interest in renewing, because they have their own streaming services now. They had no interest in the network anymore.
Im actually sad cause I enjoyed the cw and I didnt see it as a laughing stock, yes there was a bunch of bad writing in the shows I saw but there was alot of good writing too.
The only cable network that comes to mind that still carries the YA genre somewhat is freeform and I only saw that for mostly the sci fi stuff which has a track record of mostly cancelled early. I guess you can kind of count disney channel shows as YA as well?
Idk how they dont make money off their dvds, shows(through ratings) and merchandise, it must be some convoluted explanation.
True, there have been a ton of YA shows cancelled lately. Streamers and networks are chasing big general audience hits and most YA shows have YA level audiences.
So Peacock isn’t satisfied with canceling series after one season. They are now canceling series before they even air. This is not a good way to do business.
Cancelling shows before they air isnt anything new, other networks do this constantly
Somehow I think this is directly tied to Vampire Academy [apparently] failing to connect with Peacocks target audience.
I’m just glad that someone finally realized how much Julie Plec is bad at work.
To many streamers not enough audience. Next five years should whittle streamers down to maybe 3 or 4. All others will go belly up.
And yet somehow, SOMEHOW… it will end up costing consumers more. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I could see Paramount+ and Peacock merging like they are in Europe, but that won’t happen until the fate of Hulu ownership is settled. IF comcast buys Hulu, then they just fold Peacock into that. But you’re right, this year will see the ‘downfall’ of a lot of streaming services. Peak Tv has Peaked!
A Secret Circle reboot maybe?
Sadly that won’t happen the cast especially the ones who played the teenagers have out grown their roles and moved on to different things in their lives. I don’t see it being brought back by Kevin. Maybe someone else will in the future, but it will be an completely different vision maybe a bit more closer to the novel series material since Kevin and The CW did divergent away from it a bit.
Are peacock in trouble? They are canceling loads of shows just like HBO Max.
What a shame, this sounded good. I am still annoyed Vampire Academy was cancelled too!