4 upcoming CW series that can fill the Supernatural void coming in May 2020
By Rachel Roth
After its 15-season run, Supernatural will be coming to an end in May 2020. Thankfully there are several series coming to The CW that might be able to fill the void.
If not for Supernatural, I’d never tune in to The CW. Not that there’s anything wrong with its shows but I have a hard time taking them seriously. Its main demographics are teens and young adults, not the wide range of ages stretching between 18-49 that make up the Supernatural fandom.
Some of the fans of Team Free Will have grown up with the series and started watching over a decade ago when they were still tweens. Now they’re adults, and the storylines featured on some of the other CW shows might not be strong enough to keep them around once Sam and Dean are gone. In a world of melodramatic teenagers solving crimes or constantly saving their rural unsuspecting towns, Supernatural was a standout for being an adult-themed horror series that loved to laugh at itself.
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It’ll be hard to imagine a future without them. However, it seems that the CW has already thought ahead and is currently developing several projects that might be able to follow in Supernatural‘s footsteps since Wayward Sisters is a no-go.
Coming to the CW are four series that might be of some interest to Supernatural fans. Whether they share the same genre or will be starring one of the Winchesters as a Texas Ranger.
Horror series
The Lost Boys
One of my favorite movies of all time is The Lost Boys. A campy horror-comedy from the 1980s about punk-rock vampires living in California. Directed by Joel Schumacher, the film became part of the 80s vampire craze and has since developed a cult following, and is now getting a reboot from The CW.
Although this is the perfect recipe for a teen drama, I have faith that the CW will adapt some of the film’s original spirit. Like Supernatural, The Lost Boys was a horror-comedy that totally embraced whatever silliness it had and used it to their advantage, while also very generously indulging their audience with an overabundance of bloody gore.
The reboot has run into some complications since entering development in 2016. A pilot directed by Catherine Hardwicke was not picked up and creators had to rework a new one. As of right now, the only known cast members are Medalion Rahimi and Dakota Shapiro, who will play the vampire David (Kiefer Sutherland in the film) and an unnamed female vampire based off the film character Star (Jami Gertz). Filming for the pilot is set to be finished by the end of 2019.
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Dark Shadows: Reincarnation
If any show can fill Supernatural‘s shoes its Dark Shadows. A gothic soap opera from the 1960s about a wealthy family that had multiple run-ins with the supernatural. It had the usual plots seen in any soap opera but with ghosts, werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, witches, warlocks, time travel, and even a parallel universe.
Known for its colorful characters (both human and monster), insane plot twists, and heroic adventures, Dark Shadows can easily be considered one of the pioneers of live-action horror television right behind The Addams Family, The Twilight Zone, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It was rebooted in 1991 but canceled after one season and was adapted into a film starring Johnny Depp in 2012 that was panned by both critics and fans.
In 2019, it was reported that The CW was interested in developing a sequel to the series titled Dark Shadows: Reincarnation by Mark B. Perry. It’s been described as a modern-day continuation of the original story featuring the Collins family— a mysterious, influential but shy family hiding the ghastly secret that for the past 400 years, they’ve lived under a curse that bedevils their blueblood with every imaginable supernatural creature and horror.