There was once a time when The CW was famous for renewing pretty much all of its original shows every season, with only the real problems getting the proverbial boot, but—hoo boy—those days are long gone now. A few weeks after killing off bat-woman and legends of tomorrowthe network has killed off In The Dark, legacies (ending the Vampire Diaries franchise), dynasty, 4400, charmed, Naomiand Roswell New Mexiconearly all of which were reboots or revivals of other TV shows .
The Hollywood Reporter suggest that a lot of these cancellations have to do with behind-the-scenes changes at The CW, specifically the streaming ventures from co-owners CBS Studios (part of Paramount, as in Paramount+) and Warner Bros. TV (now part of Warner Bros. Discovery, of HBO Max fame). Previously, The CW made most of its money from a highly lucrative licensing deal with Netflix that saw all of its original scripted shows dumped on there once they finished airing, but that deal wasn’t renewed, and now Paramount and Warner are looking to offload the network. Killing off these shows is a step in making everything cheaper for prospective buyers.
But hey, not even The CW can air just Riverdale and Flashso Variety says it has also granted series orders to Supernatural prequel The Winchesters, Walker prequel Walker: Independenceand DC superhero show Gotham Knights that is not related to the established Arrowverse OR the upcoming video game of the same name. The Winchesters is about the father of Sam and Dean from the original Supernaturalwith Jensen Ackles from Supernatural working on it. the Walker prequel is about Walker’s ancestor (Katherine McNamara) moving to Texas for some cowboy revenge after her husband is murdered. Gotham Knights is about Batman’s “rebellious adopted son” (sounds like a Jason Todd, but could be any of them) teaming up with the children of Batman’s villains after Batman gets killed.
In the old days, we would’ve assumed that all three of those would run for eight seasons, easy, but now there’s no telling how quickly they’ll join their brethren on the cancellation pile.
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