Deadly Class co-creator Rick Remender says the show will not be making the move to a new home. In the month since SYFY cancelled Deadly Class, fans and producer Sony Pictures Television have been campaigning to find a new network for the series, taking to social media to voice their support for the show.
The series had been an adaptation of the Image Comics graphic novel by Remender and artist Wes Craig. Deadly Class follows Marcus Lopez Arguello (played by Benjamin Wadsworth) as a disillusioned teen recruited into a storied high school for assassins led by headmaster Master Lin (played by Benedict Wong). Remender, Arguello, Wong, as well as other cast and crew had joined in a hashtag campaign #SaveDeadlyClass.
Taking to his official Twitter account, Remender threw cold water on the hopefuls, stating that Deadly Class will not be moving to a new network. Despite the bad news, he kept his perspective on the development positive. Check out his post in the space below:
Over its 10-episode season, the ratings held at a per-episode average of 0.396 million viewers, which put it squarely in the middle of SYFY's ratings. Only one SYFY series with a lower rating was retained, that being Van Helsing. All of the series that had stronger ratings in the past year had been renewed, except for Z Nation. Industry sources told THR one reason SYFY opted to pass on a renewal was the series was a co-production between Universal Content Productions and Sony Pictures Television. That complicated arrangement was combined with Sony not having sold any backend options for the series, meaning there hadn't been an in-place way to monetize streaming to help offset production costs. Only recently has word emerged via Deadline that UK-based streamer Starzplay had picked up their domestic streaming rights as the first post-initial airing network to yet come forward.
It is somewhat surprising since it had seemed that Sony Pictures Television was learning hard into the possibility of a network move, given that the effort had lasted barely a month. It could have been that the multi-production house aspects of the production was giving too many networks pause. Additionally, even though the final episodes of the season were building towards a big cliffhanger, the final three episodes saw progressively lower numbers week over week. Whenever a series doesn't go out with a lift at the end, especially when the stakes are so high for the characters, networks can read it as being a sign that the audience isn't engaged enough to care. Coupled with a long between-season hiatus, the feeling is that the energy around it could be too forgotten by the time it were to come around again. For Deadly Class fans still hungering to find out what happens next, it seems that per Remender's comment, they can always follow along in the comics, which are still ongoing.
Source: Rick Remender/Twitter