We Honestly Aren’t Sure What’s Going On With This SWAMP THING Situation
Early this morning, word spread that Warner Bros.' in-production Swamp Thing series had suddenly halted production. The news arrived out of a local news outlet in North Carolina, where the series (meant to debut on the DC Universe streaming platform next month) was being shot. Shortly after this, Virginia Madsen, Swamp Thing cast member, took to her Instagram page to express disbelief at the decision, calling it "terrible". It wasn't long before further rumors began to spread: the show was canceled, the DC Universe might be getting scrapped entirely, dogs and cats would soon be living together. Mass hysteria.
Well, we sat back and watched all of this unfold, assuming that an official statement on the matter would hit the trades, which seemed even more likely once Madsen deleted her Instagram post. Whatever was going on with Swamp Thing probably wasn't great, but the details surrounding the situation were so muddled that we weren't comfortable hammering out a story on the situation.
Which brings us to now: our friends over at Slashfilm have issued a new post offering something of an update on the matter, one which claims the DC Universe streaming service is not in danger of being shut down. According to their sources, whatever's gone on with Swamp Thing has no bearing on the future of that platform. That's all well and good, of course (it's certainly good news for those of you keeping up with Doom Patrol!), but we're still unclear on what caused Warner Bros. to get Swamp Thing's 13-episode first season down to just 10 episodes. We're also not clear on what this means for the production going forward: some reports suggest a new ending will need to be written for the season (which was expecting to have three more episodes to finish telling its story), though it's anyone's guess how that would work. Wouldn't that impact all the episodes leading up to it? Will episode 10 be rewritten and reshot entirely to bring the season in for a landing, or will an 11th episode be produced?
We honestly don't know, and for now, there's no official word on the matter. As such, I'm still not entirely comfortable running a post about this, but Slashfilm's update is worth sharing with the rest of the class while the situation gets ironed out (we assume a good chunk of you are subscribed to DC Universe). Rest assured we are keeping an eye on the matter and eagerly awaiting updates, and will have those in front of you just as soon as they roll in. In the meantime, I suppose we're free to recklessly speculate on what's gone on in the comments below. Please do so now, and stay safe out there.
