TV
The CW Has Driven a Stake Through the Heart of Their Planned “Dark Shadows” TV Series
The Collins family had been set to return to television in “Dark Shadows: Resurrections,” you may recall, a brand new sequel series from The CW and Warner Bros Television.
Alas, we’ve learned this week that the plug has already been pulled.
TV Line reports, “Dark Shadows: Resurrections never made it to the pilot stage and at this point is no longer in development at The CW.”
“The re-imagined show was set to be a modern-day continuation of the strange, terrifying, and sexy saga of the Collins family of Collinsport, Maine — a mysterious, influential, publicity-shy group hiding a ghastly secret: For the past 400 years, they’ve lived under a curse that bedevils their blue blood with every imaginable supernatural creature and horror.”
The pilot for the hour-long gothic horror drama was written by Mark B. Perry (Revenge).
Created by Dan Curtis, “Dark Shadows” aired between 1966 and 1971, starring Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins. Tim Burton turned the show into a movie back in 2012.
Blade Runner is headed to the small screen in Prime Video’s upcoming Blade Runner 2099, set 50 years after Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, in a world where replicants have emerged on top after an uprising.
Humans are no longer in power.
At the forefront of the new series are stars Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once) and Hunter Schafer (Cuckoo), and EW has shared the first images of their characters.
Yeoh stars as a replicant Blade Runner named Olwen, facing the final days of her life. It’s a twist on the Roy Batty story from the first film; here, that story will be told from the replicant’s perspective.
Opposite her is Schafer as Olwen’s partner, Cora, a human fugitive pretending to be a replicant. Olwen and Cora will be working together to investigate missing rogue replicants.
Blade Runner 2099 comes from Alcon Entertainment, Scott Free, and Amazon Studios. Silka Luisa (“Shining Girls”) is writing, showrunning, and executive producing.
Jonathan van Tulleken (“Shōgun”) will direct and executive produce the first two episodes.
Luisa tells EW that Ridley Scott’s seminal sci-fi noir acts as the series’ North Star, but it’ll forge its own identity: “We leaned into sunshine noir. You’re still very much in the Blade Runner world, but the show is about a birth. It’s about a birth of a city. It’s about a birth of a replicant era. These characters are discovering who they really are. And so the climate is hot, it’s sticky, it’s sunny. We’re on the coast a lot. We’re in Santa Monica a lot. So it’s like you’re seeing Ridley’s texture, but you’re seeing it in the sunshine noir filter.”
The showrunner adds, “The show is really imagining what comes after us, and what does it mean to be human in a world where humanity is no longer relevant?“
Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), Katelyn Rose Downey (The Nun II), and Daniel Rigby (Renegade Nell) also star in the upcoming series. Johnny Harris (A Gentleman in Moscow), Amy Lennox (Only Child), Sheila Atim (The Woman King), and Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon) join as recurring guest stars.
Blade Runner 2099 is expected to premiere later this year, so stay tuned.
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
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