Vampire Academy will feast no more on Peacock, which has put a proverbial stake in the heart of its television matriculation on the streamer.
Peacock has canceled Vampire Academy after a single season, reports Deadline, which cites a lack of requisite audiences as a reason for the move. The cancellation comes as part of a double-header alongside the high-school murder mystery drama One of Us is Lying, which ends after two seasons. The series kicked off its 10-episode inaugural season on Sept. 15, running through to Oct. 27. However, produced by Universal Television, Vampire Academy did well internationally, having sold in over 100 territories. Thus, the studio is reportedly planning to shop it elsewhere.
The television creation of Julie Plec and Marguerite MacIntyre, Vampire Academy adapts the book series of the same name by author Richelle Mead, depicting the sexified sun-blocked world of young vampires at a royal boarding school for bloodsuckers called St. Vladimir's Academy. The story centers on the friendship between Rose Hathaway (Sisi Stringer), a dhampir (vampire/ human hybrid) training to be a guardian, and Lissa Dragomir (Daniela Nieves), a royal moroi vampire, presenting the stark contrast of a caste division among the aristocratic attendees.
Why Was Vampire Academy Canceled?
New platform prospects notwithstanding, the series has nevertheless become a casualty of the widespread phenomenon of belt-tightening experienced across the industry, especially streaming services. Indeed, the period of excessive spending and hair-trigger greenlighting is quite clearly over, making way for a more carefully curated approach. This era of content austerity was recently embodied by Warner Bros. Discovery's spree of cancellations last year, which saw the newly restructured corporation cut a wide array of content under its film and television umbrella, most notoriously the HBO Max-aimed DC Comics Batgirl film, which was already deep in production.
With Vampire Academy being a high-end television series that didn't exactly make the kind of viral impact as Netflix offerings Stranger Things and Wednesday or even Disney+'s growing lineup of Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars fare, its cancellation was not exactly a bombshell, even for the show's fans. Perhaps tellingly, co-creator Plec -- also known from her series-spanning executive producer run on The CW's The Vampire Diaries -- is reportedly already in the midst of development on her next TV project for Peacock, titled Freeman, which is described as a mystery drama set in a picturesque small Georgia town. That project will see Plec reunited with Vampire Academy co-exec producer Adam Starks.
Amid Vampire Academy's expulsion from the platform, Peacock is preparing to push the Jan. 26 debut of Poker Face, a drama written, directed and produced by Knives Out's Rian Johnson. The 10-episode series, which stars Russian Doll's Natasha Lyonne, could prove paradigmatic for the kind of content Peacock seeks in the future in lieu of lavish vampire school dramas.
Vampire Academy currently streams all 10 episodes of its single season on Peacock.
Source: Deadline