Viewers saw a lot of TV cancellations in 2022 and, although we're just over a month into 2023, it hasn’t been much better on that front lately. Streaming services, in particular, have been cutting a considerable amount of content as of late. One such person who's been affected by the moves is Vampire Diaries co-creator Julie Plec, as Peacock canceled her adaptation of Vampire Academy after only one season. Now, one of the company's executives, Susan Rovner, has revealed the logic behind giving it the axe.
There are a myriad of reasons why streaming platforms have been looking to cut down as of late. These major moves can stem from corporate mergers or budget cuts, among other factors. However, Susan Rovner tells THR that Vampire Academy’s cancellation (alongside that of One of Us Is Lying's) was more so due to the fact that the company made a major miscalculation early on. Rovner explained:
I have a history with Julie and Kevin from my Warner days. Both One of Us Is Lying and Vampire Academy, the takeaway was that it was too soon to put those shows up on the platform. What we realized is we have to get the parents before we get the teens. And I’m hoping that once we get the parents with shows like Poker Face and shows like Traitors, that we will be able to do a show like Vampire Academy a few years from now. The timing wasn’t right. We didn’t have the skill yet to support bringing in a young adult audience.
While it is a disappointment that we didn’t see more of the Vampire Academy cast past 10 episodes, it does make sense that Peacock would want to bring in adult audiences before trying to bring in the YA crowd. Luckily, she does seem to indicate that more can be done with this IP down the road, though I wouldn't expect to see the same stars reprising their roles for any potential revamp.
Vampire Academy was announced in 2021, and its creator previously hyped it up by making Bridgerton and Hunger Games comparisons. Even though that wasn’t enough to save the series, one can't help but appreciate what she and her creative team were going for. (And some could argue that it was a better adaptation compared to the panned 2014 film.)
Just days after the vampire show got the boot, another one of Julie Plec’s Peacock series was canceled, and this ousting occurred before the show could even premiere. Plec’s Dead Day adaptation -- which she crafted with TVD co-creator Kevin Williamson -- will no longer be moving forward at the streamer. That's surely a disappointment for fans that were looking forward to seeing Plec and Williamson working together again. Hopefully, they find another project to work on. (I wouldn't mind seeing them return to the Vampire Diaries universe at some point, personally.)
Meanwhile, Julie Plec has many more shows in development at the moment, so she definitely still has plenty of other productions to focus on. She also has an overall deal with Universal TV, so she isn’t going to stop churning out new series any time soon, it seems. I'm hopeful that her next project gets to live a bit longer and that this isn't the last we see of Vampire Academy.
Check out Vampire Academy by streaming its sole season using a Peacock subscription. CinemaBlend's 2023 TV schedule is also a resource you can use to read up on returning and premiering shows.
