Almost exactly one year ago today, it was announced that the Peacock streaming service had given a straight-to-series order to the zombie show Dead Day, on which original Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson would serve as co-showrunner with his The Vampire Diaries co-creator Julie Plec. But now Variety has discovered that Peacock will not be moving forward with Dead Day after all. Thankfully, they are letting Williamson and Plec shop the series around to other outlets. Here’s hoping Dead Day will be able to find a new home.
If Dead Day ever makes it into the production, the show will follow an ensemble 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 an adaptation of the Ryan Parrott comic book of the same name, which was first published by Aftershock Comics in 2020. The comic centers on the Haskins, a seemingly normal suburban family as they prepare for the zombie debauchery.
Plec would be executive producing Dead Day through her production company, which happens to be called My So-Called Company, while Williamson does the same through his company Outerbanks Entertainment. Ben Fast, Emily Cummins, Lee Kramer, and Aftershock Media’s Jon Kramer and David Sigurani are also on board as executive producers. Parrott is involved as consulting producer.
The news that Peacock has let go of Dead Day comes just one week after the streamer cancelled the Vampire Academy series that Plec was showrunner on with Marguerite MacIntyre. It also comes just a couple weeks after Peacock released the Williamson-scripted slasher Sick. But Plec still has other projects set up at Peacock, Amazon, Netflix, and HBO Max, while Williamson is an executive producer on the upcoming Scream 6, which reaches theatres in March.
Have you read the Dead Day comic book, and are you disappointed to hear the show isn’t moving forward at Peacock? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below. I haven’t read the comic book, but it sounds interesting…