TV Series Swamp Thing

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Swamp Thing was originally aired beginning Friday, May 31, 2019 on the DC Universe streaming service.

However, the series was cancelled after airing only one week. The cancellation was apparently not about ratings or the quality of the show, but about financing issues in what looks like a comedy of errors; see this post below for details.

After the remaining episodes of the first and only season finished airing on DC Universe, the CW acquired the broadcast rights to Swamp Thing and will re-air the series in the future, but no new episodes will be produced.

Logo:

 

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Swamp Thing reveal:

 

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Teaser trailer:

 

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"Water Embrace" promo:

 

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"Alec" promo:

 

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"Abby" promo:

 

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Full trailer:

 

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However, the series was cancelled after airing only one week.

It's apparently not about ratings or the quality of the show (it's currently a nice 94% on RottenTomatoes), but about financing issues in what looks like a comedy of errors. According to John Gholson:

North Carolina promised a $40m tax rebate that, due to a paperwork error, they were unable to deliver. That was roughly half the proposed budget for s1 (which is estimated at $80m).

When NC discovered the error, the corrected. WB shut down production, realizing they'd be taking a bath on the rebate and paying for far more of it than assumed. The adjusted number from NC is something like $14m. That's a massive difference.

There won't be a s2 because it's now too expensive to maintain the levels of quality of s1, *especially* for s a niche platform, and there's no great reason to keep the production on standby when the deal in NC is no good for them anyway.

Gholson also said:

The pilot grant was a different grant than the series grant. WB got what they expected for the pilot (covering the expensive swamp set). They may have anticipated that same amount for every episode of the series, but nope.

Gholson cites these Star News Online articles as additional sources:

- "Film Funding Nearly Cut from NC House Budget"

- "Swamp Thing, Uncle Frank Eligible for $13 Million in NC Grants"

From the former article:

The state's film grant program almost suffered a devastating blow due to what one legislator is calling a miscommunication.

As 2019-20 fiscal year budget negotiations continue in the state capital, Rep. Ted Davis Jr., R-New Hanover, said members of the House of Representatives' appropriations committee were given misinformation by the N.C. Department of Commerce that the grant program -- which gets $31 million in funding a year -- still had $67,380,519 sitting unused.

That prompted the chairs of the committee to reportedly remove the grant’s upcoming $31 million in funding from the proposed budget altogether.

"They thought that if it is just sitting there unused, the grant didn’t need more funding this new fiscal year," Davis said Monday.

In reality, the grant doesn't have $67 million in available funding.

 

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"Nightmare" season trailer for the Swamp Thing re-airing on the CW: