'Dead Boy Detectives' Canceled At Netflix After One Season
'Dead Boy Detectives' Canceled At Netflix After One Season
It’s sure going to be hard to cheat this death
The Dead Boys are being laid to rest and won’t be coming back. Netflix has canceled Dead Boy Detectives after one season, which was released on April 25.
It is widely accepted that poor viewership is the cause of the series’s downfall. It only lasted in Netflix’s Top 10 for three weeks, debuting to just 3.1 million views the week of April 22 to 28, for which it was only present the first 3 or 4 days. That amounted to 22.2 million total hours. Its first full week, April 29 to May 5 saw a 54% increase to 4.7 million views on 34.1 million hours viewed. However what sealed its fate was a cratering dropoff of 61% down to 1.8 million views on 13.3 million hours viewed before dropping off entirely. It certainly put it in the company of other canceled Netflix series.
Dead Boy Detectives centers on Edwin Payne, played by George Rexstrew and Charles Rowland, played by Jayden Revri, ‘the brains’ and ‘the brawn’ behind the Dead Boy Detectives agency. Teenagers born decades apart who find each other only in death, Edwin and Charles are best friends and ghosts… who solve mysteries. They will do anything to stick together, including escaping evil witches, Hell and Death herself. With the help of a clairvoyant named Crystal Palace, played by Kassius Nelson and her friend Niko, played by Yuyu Kitamura, “they are able to crack some of the mortal realm’s most mystifying paranormal cases.”
The series also stars Jenn Lyon as Esther Finch, the immortal witch seeking revenge against the boys, Briana Cuoco as Jenny Green, owner of the Tongue & Tail butcher shop, whose upstairs rooms the boys are renting, and Ruth Connell, reprising her role as Night Nurse from Doom Patrol. Major recurrers include Lukas Gage as the Cat King, a magical cat able to take on human form, who magically prevents Edwin from leaving Port Townsend, and David Iacono as David, the demon who stalks Crystal after having possessed her for a period. Steve Yockey, developer of Max’s The Flight Attendant, developed the series for television and serves as co-showrunner and executive producer alongside Beth Schwartz, Gaiman, Greg Berlanti, Jeremy Carver, Sarah Schechter, and Leigh London Redman. The first episode is directed and executive produced by Lee Toland Krieger. Berlanti Productions produces in association with Warner Bros. Television, where Berlanti Productions is still under an overall deal. It is this overall deal that has seen the development of a live action series for another Warner Bros. owned detective team, Mystery Incorporated.
Coming from the Vertigo imprint, the Dead Boy Detectives were created by Neil Gaiman and Matt Wagner. The series was originally ordered for what was then-HBO Max just as Warner Bros. Discovery was forming in April 2022. Too far outside the realm of the DC Universe being built by new DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran by the end of that year, the move to Netflix happened in February 2023. Both the property and the adaptation are part of the Sandman universe, also created by Gaiman, with a Netflix adaptation that premiered in August 2022 making the Dead Boy Detectives move all the more sensible. Sandman will be back next year with its second season.
Source: Variety