Swamp Thing Season 2: The character of Swamp Thing has been around for decades. Over time, Wes Craven’s Swamp Thing film from 1982 has become a beloved cult classic. As a result, fans went absolutely nuts when Warner Bros. and The CW announced in 2019 that the first season of Swamp Thing would be airing.
Fans of the show are still curious about what will happen to Alec Holland/Swamp Thing after Season 1 ended more than two years ago. When will Season 2 be available? Find out why by reading on!
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Will There Be Swamp Thing Season 2?
The premiere of Swamp Thing Season 1 was on May 31, 2019. The title character of Swamp Thing first appeared in DC Comics. The show is in the same shared universe as other DC-based series on The CW called the Arrowverse.
Everyone had hoped that the show would run for multiple seasons. As a result, the show’s abrupt cancellation was met with shock and dismay from its audience. As of this writing, Warner Bros. has not provided a reason for the cancellation.
Nonetheless, that didn’t stop fans from making assumptions. Few sources state that the show’s cancellation was due to budget constraints in the show’s final season of production. And that the state of North Carolina, where production on the show has been taking place, is being held responsible for the accounting error that led to this mess.
In an interview, actor Derek Mears described the time after the cancellation was announced as “a weird nebulous space that we’re all in now because we don’t know officially why that would happen or why they canceled it.”
As an expression of his displeasure, Mears asked, “Even if you’re going to cancel it, wouldn’t you wait until later to see how it plays with fans before?” There must be action taking place somewhere.
Swamp Thing really was an underrated horror gem that deserved far more respect than it was ultimately given.
One of the best live-action DC shows for sure but it had so much untapped potential. Still not over the fact that there wasn’t a season 2. pic.twitter.com/RLMkgP9KrS
— Michael Patterson (@michaelp93) September 16, 2021
Swamp Thing Season 2 Story
While specifics are sketchy, we do know that Swamp Thing was scheduled to run for three seasons before it was canceled. It was planned for the show to spawn several spin-offs, one of which would have been Justice League Dark, which would have featured several magically-powered heroes from the darker side of DC Comics.
Several episodes of Swamp Thing moved in this direction by introducing the Phantom Stranger and the psychic Madame Xanadu, respectively. Ian Zerling was set to play the title role in a Blue Devil spin-off that never happened.
Zerling has made several cameo appearances playing the role of actor Dan Cassidy, who played a superhero named the Blue Devil in a film and unknowingly created a Faustian bargain to become the hero he played.
Cassidy transformed into a flaming blue demon in the penultimate episode of Swamp Thing, “The Anatomy Lesson,” to rescue Dr. Abby Arcane and Liz Tremayne from Avery Sunderland’s thugs.
It’s reasonable to assume that, had he lived, Swamp Thing would have kept digging into the murky depths of the bogs beyond Marais, where he felt a growing darkness.
In addition, the show would have followed the comics’ lead and shown how Abby Arcane and Swamp Thing develop a real romance. Possibly in an upcoming episode of Legends of Tomorrow, we’ll even get to see a team-up between the Swamp Thing and his frenemy John Constantine.
Why did DC Universe Cancel Swamp Thing?
TV Line reported that despite Swamp Thing’s popularity on the CW, a second season is improbable. The sources said that “all signs point to a Season 2 not happening, anywhere,” citing that the sets are “long gone” and any cast contract has since expired.
It was also mentioned that the show’s abrupt cancellation the first time around served as a deterrent. It was unclear at the time why the show was canceled, but the state of North Carolina, where filming took place, may have had something to do with it because tax incentives there had been eliminated.
Later, it was revealed that the real reasons for the show’s cancellation were the studio’s unwillingness to pay “millions” to store the show’s physical sets and a lack of faith in the material from the highest levels of management.
Mark Pedowitz, president of The CW, has said that he is “not ruling out” the renewal of Swamp Thing. Still, he acknowledges that reviving the dormant series would require complex negotiations with WB executives.
Unfortunately, DC’s television lineup will no longer include Swamp Thing, even if this is only the final nail in the coffin of a series that has been off the air for nearly two years. The horror-themed comics were a departure from DCTV’s typical programming.
The wildly original tone of Swamp Thing, like that of HBO Max’s odd duck Doom Patrol, broadened the scope of what superhero content can look like on television. While the Arrowverse has established itself as the gold standard for superhero shows on broadcast television.
The CW’s Swamp Thing has shown that audiences are interested in learning more about lesser-known characters from the DC canon and in darker stories. While we may not see Swamp Thing anytime soon, DC has learned from the series’ successes and failures.