Vampire Academy's cancellation has been addressed by one of the executives in charge. The series, which is a new adaptation of the novel series of the same name by Richelle Mead, was created by The Vampire Diaries co-creator Julie Plec and star Marguerite MacIntyre. The series, which premiered on Peacock in September 2022, ran for 10 episodes and was subsequently cancelled in January.
Recently, THR sat down with NBCUniversal's TV and streaming chairman of entertainment content Susan Rovner. During the conversation, she explained the reason for the cancellation of several series, including Vampire Academy, Plec and Kevin Williamson's in-development series Dead Day, and the thriller One Of Us is Lying. She said that one of Peacock's big lessons was to draw in adult viewers first and that it was "too soon to put those shows up on the platform," though there may be space for a teen show like Vampire Academy somewhere down the road in a few years. Read her full quote below:
I have a history with Julie and Kevin from my Warner days. Both One of Us Is Lying and Vampire Academy, the takeaway was that it was too soon to put those shows up on the platform. What we realized is we have to get the parents before we get the teens. And I’m hoping that once we get the parents with shows like Poker Face and shows like Traitors, that we will be able to do a show like Vampire Academy a few years from now. The timing wasn’t right. We didn’t have the skill yet to support bringing in a young adult audience.
Does Vampire Academy Have a Future Elsewhere?
Plec has had a challenging season. In addition to Vampire Academy and Dead Day being canceled at Peacock, her CW series Legacies (the second spinoff of The Vampire Diaries following The Originals) was axed alongside many scripted CW series last year. However, she recently assured fans that she was "knocking on doors" and trying to find a new home for Vampire Academy.
However, finding a new network for the YA series might be a challenge. Streaming services are usually the platforms that rescue canceled network shows (like Netflix's renewals of You and Manifest), so canceled streaming series don't necessarily have a clear route to resurrection. However, this has happened in the past, including Netflix's One Day at a Time reboot being picked up by Pop TV, so there is always a chance.
Unfortunately, Vampire Academy has found itself without a platform at a very bad time for streaming. Services like HBO Max and Paramount+ have been cleaning house and likely aren't looking to bring on any new originals that were already scrapped once. The most likely home would be Netflix, which has a solid teen base thanks to titles like the To All the Boys trilogy, but the series would have to prove itself worth its budget, which might only happen with an online fan campaign to prove the audience is indeed there should they pick it up.
Source: THR