Peacock orders new supernatural drama series Dead Day from The Vampire Diaries creators
The series hails from The Vampire Diaries creators Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson
Aux News The Vampire Diaries
Just like ghosts which arise from the dead, another Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec collaboration is officially on Peacock’s docket. The streamer announced today the straight-to-series order of supernatural drama series Dead Day from The Vampire Diaries creators, who will serve as co-showrunners, writers, and executive producers.
Dead Day is described as an ensemble series that follows a cast of characters as they “navigate the annual ‘dead day,’ when for one night the dead come back to complete unfinished business—be that to celebrate a night back on earth or to torment the living.” The series is based on the hit AfterShock comic book collection created by Ryan Parrott.
This is Plec and Williamson’s first reunion since creating the long-running hit TV series The Vampire Diaries (2009-2017), starring Nina Dobrev, Paul Wesley, Ian Somerhalder, Kat Graham, Candice King, and Zach Roerig.
“We have been looking for a project to do together and Dead Day has all the ingredients we love as storytellers. Love, death, thrills and tears—and we know Susan Rovner and her team at Peacock is the perfect fit for this project,” Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson said in a joint statement.
Plec is currently crafting another vampire series over on Peacock, called Vampire Academy, on which she serves as co-creator and co-showrunner with actor Marguerite MacIntyre. She is also executive producing the upcoming NBC series The Endgame. Vampire Academy is currently in post-production, while The Endgame is set to premiere on February 21.
Williamson recently served as executive producer on the newest Scream flick, and currently serves as a producer on the forthcoming thriller Sick. The two creators have been longtime friends and colleagues ever since they met while working together on Wes Craven’s Scream back in 1996, where Williamson served as lead writer. In addition to creating The Vampire Diaries together, Plec also worked on Williamson’s series Dawson’s Creek.
“Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson are each a powerhouse unto themselves, so we couldn’t have been more excited when they told us they wanted to team up again,” says Vivian Cannon, EVP, Drama Development, Universal Television. “Dead Day will be everything Julie and Kevin’s audiences love about their work—emotional, unexpected and totally bingeable!”
3 Comments
hit AfterShock comic book Come on. Just because the press release says that doesn’t mean anyone’s ever heard of this comic book or AfterShock.
There are lots of tiny comic book companies around that basically just exist to essentially create storyboards that can then be said to be “based on the hit comic book” when they’re picked up to series.
According to Comixology, this was a five-issue series in 2020, likely created explicitly to sell this pitch to a studio. The final issue was rated by all of eight people.
There’s a peacock animated series (supernatural academy) which all the press releases said was based on a popular YA series. I found the book and downloaded it, it’s a kindle unlimited New Adult series (so YA but a little older and with sex) and the only thing the two had in common was the name of the school.
L. J. Smith created The Vampire Diaries.