If you missed the lone season of Swamp Thing on DC Universe in 2019 and you don’t subscribe to the WarnerMedia service, you will have your chance to catch it courtesy of The CW.
The network picked up the license to air the full season for the first time on broadcast TV, according to The Hollywood Reporter and multiple other sources.
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The CW made the announcement but did not say when Swamp Thing will premiere on the network or either of its apps. Deadline and We Got This Covered singled out summer as the time.
An official announcement should come later in the week. The CW is set to unveil its fall schedule by Thursday.
They also acquired CBS All Access anthology series Tell Me a Story, a UK comedy in Dead Pixels, and Canadian drama Coroner. All should be airing over the summer as well.
Swamp Thing, based heavily on Alan Moore’s run on the comic, starred Crystal Reed as Abby Arcane, Derek Mears as the title monster, and Andy Bean as Alec Holland. It was abruptly canceled after one episode and had its episode order reduced from 13 to 10.
Reasons are sketchy to this day, ranging from cost-cutting and filming location North Carolina not holding up their end of the monetary bargain to WarnerMedia wanting to shut down DC Universe for the sake of HBO Max. That last one sparked a conspiracy theory and uproar online.
Cast members were outraged too. Virginia Madsen, who played Maria Sunderland, vociferated her disapproval of the cancellation on Instagram.
Her post was deleted but here is what she said:
“What a terrible decision. We have been cut to the core by those who have never set foot into the Swamp. And despite the rule I am going to use the hashtag. #swampthing.”
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THR offered an explanation having to do with the attitude of the studio at the time and paying for the storage of sets:
“Despite promising reviews, insiders believed that they had a dud on their hands and, rather than pull the plug on the project and lose millions already invested with nothing to show for it, the studio opted instead to complete work on the series and use it to bolster the library content on the DC Universe platform that serves as a value-add to its massive digital comic book library. Sources at the time said the timing of the cancellation was spurred by the studio’s decision to bypass paying millions to store the show’s physical sets in North Carolina. That decision led to the cancellation leak.”
There is no way of knowing if The CW will reinvigorate interest in the series or inspire a comeback. Star Ian Ziering told SYFY WIRE last August the halt of production was unfortunate but he believed renewal in some form was possible.
With Swamp Thing and also Blue Devil and Phantom Stranger accounted for, the show was building to Justice League Dark. Had it continued, EP Gary Dauberman revealed the team would form.
That’s going to happen anyway. J.J. Abrams is producing Justice League Dark for HBO Max as a series – odd when you consider the above, that Warner didn’t want to shell out for James Wan’s translation of the same thing.
Funny enough, they aren’t hiding from the show at all; The CW programming and Crisis on Infinite Earths prove that. Mears’ Swamp Thing and a version known to Matt Ryan’s John Constantine both exist in the DC TV Multiverse.
So does that other DC Universe show, Stargirl, coming to The CW very soon, before Mr. Holland.