Sci Fi TV Top 5: Covering the top sci fi and fantasy TV stories of interest from the past week. You can keep up with the sci fi and fantasy TV news headlines throughout the week at r/SciFiTV on Twitter and on Reddit.
1. AMC Teams with Anne Rice on The Vampire Chronicles and The Lives of the Mayfair Witches
Cable network AMC has acquired the rights for the Anne Rice properties The Vampire Chronicles and The Lives of the Mayfair Witches. The former is a novel series that focuses on the French nobleman Lestat de Lioncourt who turned into a vampire in the 18th century and still lives today. Rice has put out thirteen novels so far in that series. The Lives of the Mayfair Witches consists of three novels that focus on the Mayfairs, a family of witches that has carried on for generations. Both properties will be adapted for television for the AMC networks. Rice was previously working on a television adaptation of The Vampire Chronicles with no network attached at that time.
>ALSO READ:From the Upfronts: The CW Announces 2020-21 Sched, Moves Returning Shows to January
2. American Horror Story Anthology Spin-Off in the Works
FX’s successful season-long horror anthology series American Horror Story is heading into its tenth season, and series creator Ryan Murphy has indicated that a spin-off series is in the works. It will be titled American Horror Stories and will be comprised of one-hour self-contained episodes. According to Variety: “each episode will be its own individual ghost story, and will likely feature familiar players from the main show.” There is no word on when production will begin, and the tenth season of the main show has been delayed due to the Coronavirus-related shutdowns. Expect the spin-off to arrive at some point in 2021.
3. Disney+ Is Bringing Back Percy Jackson
Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson fantasy series of books, announced on Twitter that Disney+ will be adapting the franchise for television. In the short video clip posted on Twitter, Riordan had this to say about the series:
We are very excited about the idea of a live-action series of the highest quality, following the storyline of the original Percy Jackson five-book series, starting with The Lightning Thief in season one.
It appears that this will be a reboot and not a followup to the feature films based on the books. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief was released in 2010 followed by Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters in 2014. Logan Lerman played the title character in the films.
4. Superman Will Cross-Over with Batwoman Next Season
The CW has been doing annual cross-over events with its Arrow-verse shows for several years now and has the next one in the planning phase. The primary characters in the cross-over will be Superman (who gets his own series Superman & Lois starting next season) and Batwoman. The network’s chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz had this to say about the cross-over:
We’re still working on it. It will be a smaller event than usual, we’re only planning a two-hour event. We are talking about doing Superman and Batwoman together. There’s a lot of characters coming from our other shows.
No story details have been revealed at this point, nor do we know the other Arrow-verse characters that will be involved. The network is targeting first or second quarter of 2021 to get the two-hour event on the air (more on The CW’s upcoming schedule at this link).
5. Netflix Gets a Sweet Tooth
Netflix has given a series order to the supernatural drama Sweet Tooth based on the DC/Vertgio comic of the same name. Variety gives the following description for the series:
Sweet Tooth is a coming-of-age tale of Gus, a part boy, part deer who leaves home amid a cataclysmic world event, then joins “a ragtag family of humans and animal-children hybrids like himself in search of answers about this new world and the mystery behind his hybrid origins.”
Hulu had originally ordered the pilot but decided to pass on the property. Netflix has since stepped in and given it a greenlight to series. It stars Christian Convery, Nonso Anozie, Adeel Akhtar, and Will Forte and comes from Robert Downey Jr.’s production company Team Downey. Jim Mickle (Stake Land) and Beth Schwartz (Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow) are attached as showrunners for the series.
6. Renewal and Cancellation Announcements: Two Sentence Horror Stories Renewed, The Purge Cancelled
The CW has placed a second season order for its horror anthology series Two Sentence Horror Stories which is inspired by the internet mini-tales. That show aired its first season last Summer and will be on the network’s Fall schedule in 2020 (more on The CW’s upcoming schedule at this link). USA has cancelled its dystopian series The Purge, based on the film franchise of the same name, after two seasons. That network appears to be following the trend of many of the other basic cable channels by moving away from scripted programming. Expect more renewal and cancellation throughout May and be sure to stay tuned to this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates.
THE SCHED: Premieres for Stargirl and The 100 Season 7
This coming week brings the long-awaited premiere of the DC Universe entry Stargirl. That series, based on the DC Comics character, has its premiere on DCU on Monday with one episode releasing per week. Each episode will then air the next night on broadcast on The CW on Tuesdays at 8 PM EST. Also premiering this week is the seventh and final season of The CW’s post-apocalyptic series The 100. That show kicks off its final year at 8 PM on Wednesday. There are more shows on the way in May, and you can see the full schedule of sci fi and fantasy shows at this link and you can keep up with the weekly listings at this link.
More from CancelledSciFi.com
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Check out our Sci Fi TV Schedule for debut and season finale dates and follow our Weekly Listings for a rundown of the shows airing in the current week.
Check back each Saturday for Sci Fi TV Retrospectives: A look back at cancelled, classic, forgotten, and more genre shows from the past.
