Tag Archives: iZombie

Warner’s DC Comics enjoys boom

November 11, 2016Hit & MissAMC, Arrow, Black Lightning, DC Comics, Fox, Gotham, Greg Berlanti, iZombie, Krypton, Legends of Tomorrow, Lucifer, NBC, Powerless, Preacher, Scalped, Supergirl, SyFy, The CW, The Flash, Warner Bros, WGN AmericaAndy Fry

A couple of months ago, we looked at the success Disney has had with its Marvel acquisition. So it seems only fair that we also shine a spotlight on DC Comics, a division of Warner Bros that has spawned dozens of films, scripted shows and animation series.

Characters from DC, formed in 1932, have formed the basis of hit TV series since the 1950s. After early outings for Superman and Batman, DC properties gave us iconic shows like Wonder Woman, Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville.

The latter ran for 10 seasons (2001-2011) and 218 episodes, first on The WB and then on its replacement network The CW (which is 50/50 owned by CBS and DC Comics owner Warner Bros).

While DC properties remain an important part of the feature-film landscape, it’s The CW that continues to provide the major platform for DC Comics’ success on the small screen.

A key landmark was the launch of Arrow in 2012. Adapted for the screen by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg, the show is one of The CW’s top performers and is currently in its fifth season, attracting just under two million viewers per episode.

The importance of Arrow goes beyond its ratings, however. On the one hand, it has encouraged The CW to back a number of DC-based franchises, with Berlanti and co in charge of the creative. On the other, it has persuaded some of the larger US networks to tap into the company’s pool of comic book IP.

Looking first at The CW, 2014 saw the launch of The Flash, which is part of the same mythological universe as Arrow (known to aficionados as the ‘Arrowverse’). Now in season three, The Flash is currently The CW’s top-rated show with around 2.8 million viewers per episode. And earlier this year, the network launched another spin-off based on the ‘Arrowverse’ pool of characters. Called DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, it is currently attracting a steady 1.8 million and has been renewed for a 17-episode second season.

In addition to the above shows, The CW is also home to Supergirl, a DC-based series that was originally aired on CBS but then shifted to The CW for season two when its ratings started to decline. In the less exposed world of The CW, the show has thrived and is now its second most popular series, averaging 2.6 million viewers.

The relationship with DC has also allowed The CW to segue into the ‘Zombieverse’ with iZombie. Loosely based on a comic book series that came out of DC’s Vertigo imprint, the show has a third season on the way and averages around 1.2 million viewers.

The rise of DC’s stock has also encouraged some of the Big Four US networks to sample the company’s wares. The stand out example of this is Fox’s Gotham, which delves into the backstory of the young Batman, focusing its energy primarily on Commissioner James Gordon and the origin stories of some of Batman’s most famous enemies. Now in its third season, the show is currently attracting an OK-but-not-amazing 3.4 million (down from four million in season two and six million in season one).

Echoing its growing relationship with Disney’s Marvel, Fox has adapted a second DC property, Lucifer, based on a character that appeared in comic book series The Sandman (created by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg).

The show debuted last year and did well enough to get a second season. Currently averaging around 3.5 million viewers, the second run was extended to 22 episodes last month – though the jury is still out on whether it is doing well enough to secure a third outing.

Without being overly critical, there is a pattern with DC properties – they perform strongly on The CW but modestly on the Big Four. Gotham and Lucifer have done OK but not fantastically well, while Supergirl’s strong start dissipated quickly, hence its move to The CW. To this list should be added Constantine, which aired for a single season on NBC before being axed.

The main reason for this is The CW is a narrowly focused youth channel while the Big Four are mainstream, so are probably trying to reach an audience that is more ambivalent about superheroes and fantasy adventure series. Nevertheless, there are more planned DC shows in the pipeline for the Big Four.

NBC, for example, is developing a sitcom rooted in the DC universe. Called Powerless, the shows is “a workplace comedy set at one of the worst insurance companies in the US – with the twist being that it also takes place in the universe of DC Comics. The show is about the reality of working life for a normal, powerless person in a world of superheroes and villains.”

Batman prequel series Gotham airs on Fox

Fox, meanwhile, is reported to be piloting a show based on Black Lightning, one of the first African American superheroes to appear in DC Comics. This is a welcome trend, echoing the recent Marvel/Netflix tie-in on the new Luke Cage series.

Of course, the fact that The CW does so well has not been lost on cable channels, which have a similar kind of niche profile. So we’re also starting to see more DC properties populate this part of the TV business. AMC, for example, is doing pretty well with Preacher, another idea from DC’s Vertigo imprint. The first season attracted around 1.68 million per episode and a recommission followed.

Other pilot orders include Scalped for WGN America and Krypton for Syfy (the latter set in the Superman universe). There are also reported to be several other titles in development including DMZ and Ronin for Syfy and Amped for USA Network. FX is also believed to be developing a series based on Y: The Last Man.

For those unfamiliar with the world of comic books, the DC/Vertigo dichotomy is interesting. While the former is home to mainstream franchises like Superman and Batman, the latter was specifically set up to publish more hard-hitting, adult-themed franchises. This is significant, because it opened up the range of opportunities for DC.

Supergirl, for example, might fit on CBS or The CW but would look tame on AMC. Preacher, by contrast, would not go down well with a more mainstream audience. That said, Constantine and Lucifer were both born into the Vertigo family, which shows that the Big Four networks have been exploring the potential to soften Vertigo shows for their demos.

Preacher has been given a second season on AMC

It’s also worth noting that there have been other DC subsidiaries down the years that are still providing IP for film and TV. For example, DC acquired an imprint called WildStorm in 1999 and shut it down in 2010. During that time, WildStorm created Red, a franchise that was subsequently turned into two successful films. Recent reports suggest NBC is now planning a TV version.

One obvious final question, of course, is how DC-based shows fare internationally. Well, not too badly actually.

Gotham has been licensed to platforms including Globo Brazil, Pro7 Germany and Netflix in Poland, while Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow have both been acquired by Italia 1 among others.

Lucifer has also travelled well, to platforms such as Amazon UK and Viasat 3 in Hungary. On UK pay TV channel Sky1, latest ratings figures put The Flash, Arrow and Supergirl as the top three shows, underlining the global appeal of the dynamic DC business.

tagged in: AMC, Arrow, Black Lightning, DC Comics, Fox, Gotham, Greg Berlanti, iZombie, Krypton, Legends of Tomorrow, Lucifer, NBC, Powerless, Preacher, Scalped, Supergirl, SyFy, The CW, The Flash, Warner Bros, WGN America

The CW turns up to 11

March 14, 2016GreenlightAMC, Arrow, Charlie Collier, Danny Boyle, FX, Into the Badlands, ITV, iZombie, Jane the Virgin, Legends of Tomorrow, Mark Pedowitz, My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Nicola Shindler, Paranoid, Red Production Company, Reign, Supernatural, The CW, The Flash, The Originals, The Vampire Diaries, TrustAndy Fry

Supernatural will enter its 12th season on The CW

US networks are notorious for cancelling scripted series early. So there was a pleasant surprise for producers this week when CBS/Warner Bros joint venture The CW announced it is renewing all 11 of its current series. Talk about happy customers.

Launched in 2006, The CW is a bit different from the four major US networks (ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox) in that it focuses on a younger audience (18- to 34-year-olds). This is reflected in its programming line-up, which places a strong emphasis on DC Comics-originated superheroes, zombies, vampires, Armageddon and the like.

As we’ve discussed before, the top three shows on The CW are all DC Comics-based. The Flash is currently in the middle of season two and a third has now been ordered. Arrow, meanwhile, has been awarded a fifth run and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, only eight episodes into its first outing, has been granted a renewal.

The next best-rating show on The CW (in the key 18-49 demographic) is Supernatural, which is about a pair of brothers (the Winchesters) who hunt down demons, monsters and ghosts. An incredibly durable series, the new greenlight means it will be up to 12 seasons – in excess of 250 episodes. Hardly anything apart from hit procedural crime dramas go on that long, so it has proven a real stalwart of the network. Indeed, there are reports that the key cast has also signed up for season 13.

Also renewed is The 100, which follows a group of young survivors of a nuclear apocalypse

Coming in behind Supernatural is iZombie, which has been given a third season (the clue to its subject matter is in the title). After this comes The 100, which follows a group of young survivors who return to Earth from space stations approximately 100 years after a nuclear Armageddon. This one is currently drawing about 1.2 million viewers per episode and has been granted a fourth season.

The Vampire Diaries, meanwhile, has just been given an eighth season. Even more impressive is that the show spawned a spin-off called The Originals (more vampires), which has been granted a fourth season.

From here we come to the three lowest ratings performers (in terms of 18-49s). Interestingly, all three break with The CW’s successful formula of supernatural and mythology.

Jane the Virgin, for example, is an adaptation of a comic telenovela that has been gifted a third season. Reign, which has been greenlit for a fourth run, is The CW’s take on the story of Mary, Queen of Scots. And Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, bottom of the charts by some margin, is a romantic musical comedy drama that has been given the greenlight for a second outing.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has won a Golden Globe but doesn’t perform as well in the ratings as many of the other CW renewals

Commenting on the mass renewal, The CW president Mark Pedowitz said: “The CW has become home to some of the most critically acclaimed shows on broadcast TV, with a wide array of fantastic scripted series across the week, ranging from musical comedy, to superhero action, to gritty sci-fi dramas. As we continue our strategy of more year-round original programming, picking up these 11 series for the 2016-2017 season puts us in a great position of having proven, high-quality shows to launch in the autumn as well as midseason and summer of 2017.”

A couple of obvious questions spring to mind as a result of this renewal frenzy, however. The first is why has The CW renewed the last three series when it clearly does better with supernatural/superhero shows? Well, the answer seems to be that they are the only ones in the portfolio to be produced by CBS TV Studios – and CBS has a minimum expectation that it will get to deliver three shows to the network. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has won a Golden Globe. But it must still be a concern that the CBS shows are outperformed by all the other programmes (which are, incidentally, all produced by the CW’s other partner, Warner Bros.)

Secondly, does it mean The CW is now closed to new shows for a year? Not necessarily. The network has the flexibility to commission some new shows for the summer, or maybe introduce some on shorter-runs.

Still in the US, cable network FX has ordered 10 episodes of a new drama from Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle. Entitled Trust, the series focuses on the story of Getty oil heir John Paul Getty III, who was kidnapped by an Italian gang in 1973. Described as a combination of dynastic saga and an examination of the corrosive power of money, it is the first Boyle project to have been greenlit since he signed a first-look deal with FX in 2014. Executive producers are Boyle, Simon Beaufoy and Christian Colson (who also signed a first-look deal with FX).

The other big story coming out of the US cable market is that AMC has ordered a 10-episode second season of its martial arts drama Into the Badlands. The renewal is no real surprise given that the six-episode first run achieved the third highest-rated first season in US cable TV history (averaging 5.6 million viewers per episode in the Live+7 ratings).

“With its deep dive into authentic martial arts, the visually stunning Into the Badlands proved to be unlike anything else on television,” said Charlie Collier, president of AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios. “Co-creators and showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar, along with a talented team of producers, cast and crew, brought us an artfully crafted series. We’re eager to return to the world of barons and blades and spend even more time with these compelling and evolving characters across an expanded second season.”

High-concept scripted shows like Into the Badlands are playing an important role in helping US cable networks establish themselves in the international market as well. “Simultaneous to its US launch, AMC Global will premiere season two of Into the Badlands within minutes of the US broadcast,” AMC said. “AMC Global premiered season one in 125 countries simultaneous to the US premiere, and it achieved a record-breaking performance.”

In another example of the way scripted shows are used to distinguish platforms, Virgin Media UK has secured exclusive UK rights to DirecTV series Kingdom from Endemol Shine International for its on-demand service. Episodes from the first two seasons will be available to its customers from April 1. This echoes a similar deal last year when Virgin Media took exclusive UK rights to Starz series Ash vs Evil Dead for on-demand.

Finally, ITV UK has commissioned an eight-part thriller called Paranoid from Red Production Company. Indira Varma, Robert Glenister, Neil Stuke, Lesley Sharp and Kevin Doyle star in the series, which is being billed as a conspiracy thriller.

According to ITV, Paranoid (written by Bill Gallagher) “tells the story of a female GP who is murdered in a children’s playground with an abundance of eyewitnesses. A group of detectives embark on what seems to be a straightforward murder investigation, but as they delve deeper into the case they are drawn into the ever-darkening mystery, which takes them unexpectedly across Europe.”

Commenting on the show, Red’s Nicola Shindler said: “We’re really excited to be working with Bill Gallagher (The Paradise, Conviction, Love Life and Lark Rise to Candleford) again. He’s created a conspiracy thriller the audience won’t be able to look away from. It’s edgy, suspenseful and hugely ambitious as filming takes place in Cheshire and Germany.”

Red’s parent company StudioCanal will distribute Paranoid internationally.

tagged in: AMC, Arrow, Charlie Collier, Danny Boyle, FX, Into the Badlands, ITV, iZombie, Jane the Virgin, Legends of Tomorrow, Mark Pedowitz, My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Nicola Shindler, Paranoid, Red Production Company, Reign, Supernatural, The CW, The Flash, The Originals, The Vampire Diaries, Trust

TV’s zombie obsession

October 30, 2015Hit & MissAMC, Ash Vs. Evil Dead, Babylon Fields, BBC3, Canal+, Carmi Zlotnik, Fear The Walking Dead, Glitch, I'm Alive, In the Flesh, iZombie, Les Revenants, MBC, NBC, Starz, SyFy, The Returned, The Walking Dead, Z NationAndy Fry

BBC3's In the Flesh ran for two seasons — BBC3’s In the Flesh ran for two seasons

AMC’s cult zombie drama The Walking Dead (TWD) continues to generate massive ratings. Three episodes into season six, its audience is holding up well compared with season five figures.

The first episode attracted more than 20 million viewers once the time-shifted audience was included in the total. Episode three, which may or may not have seen the death of a popular central character, is likely to hit a similar mark once all the data is in.

The fate of the character in question (Glenn) also had a big impact on The Talking Dead, a recap show that is aired immediately after each episode. Around six million viewers tuned in to that, underlining the nature of the TWD phenomenon.

Of course, the success of TWD also encouraged AMC to launch a companion series entitled Fear The Walking Dead. While it’s fair to say that FTWD hasn’t yet hit the same creative heights as TWD, its initial run of six episodes (which ended on October 4) still managed to attract a massive 11.2 million viewers (Live+3 day ratings, averaged across the run).

This makes it the highest-rated first season in cable TV history. An added bonus for fans suffering zombie withdrawal is the 16-part web series FTWD: Flight 462, currently available on AMC.com.

The remarkable thing about the success of AMC’s franchise is the way it has spawned so many series about the undead. While they don’t all approach the subject matter in the same way, there’s no question that they have been legitimised by the success of TWD.

The Walking Dead has paved the way for a multitude of undead-focused series

In the US, for example, we have seen ABC’s Resurrection, which lasted for two seasons, and The CW’s iZombie, which is currently partway through its second season and rating reasonably well (around 1.3-1.5 million viewers).

Less well known around the world is Syfy’s Z Nation, which is also in its second season. The show’s ratings of around 850,000-900,000 are nowhere near as impressive as those of TWD but it does have its fans. Graeme Virtue of The Guardian newspaper called Z Nation a “brazen Walking Dead rip-off” but still included it on a list of five great US TV shows unavailable in Britain. Since Virtue’s article, the show has now become available in the UK on Pick TV.

Not to be overlooked, of course, is Starz’ upcoming launch of Ash vs Evil Dead (based on the classic Evil Dead franchise). With series one premiering on Halloween, the network has shown its faith in the saga by ordering a second season.

Unveiling the news this week, Starz MD Carmi Zlotnik said: “One season isn’t enough to satisfy the fans’ two decade-long appetite for more (lead character) Ash. The early fan and press support, along with international broadcaster demand, has made it clear that the adventures of Ash Williams can’t end with season one.”

Ash vs Evil Dead has already been given a second season

Starz has signed global licensing deals for Ash Vs Evil Dead with broadcasters and digital platforms in more than 100 countries and will allow the show to premiere simultaneously with the US. Partners include Amedia (Russia/CIS), C More (Scandinavia), Fox Latin America, Sky TV (New Zealand), Stan (Australia), Starz Play Arabia (MENA) and Super Channel (Canada).

Also in the news this week is Australian series Glitch, which has been given a second series by ABC. This isn’t a TWD-style zombie series but it fits in with the general undead theme very well. Produced by Matchbox, it tells the story of six people who inexplicably return from the dead, alive and in good health. The initial run of six episodes aired in July and attracted 350,000-500,000 viewers.

Undead aficionados will, of course, see comparisons between Glitch and the French series Les Revenants (aka The Returned), which also focused on ordinary folk returning from the dead. Les Revenants was adapted for the US market where it had an unsuccessful one-season run. But in France (and around the world) the first season of the original series has been a big hit. Airing on Canal+ in France, the show attracted around 1.5 million viewers across eight episodes.

After a three year hiatus, season two of Les Revenants finally went to air this autumn. While it has been picked up internationally by many of the networks that aired season one, season two hasn’t done as well as season one for Canal+, with some critics blaming the three-year gap for the audience’s lukewarm reaction.

Australia's Glitch is similar in theme to Les Revenants/The Returned — Australia’s Glitch is similar in theme to Les Revenants/The Returned

Although final series numbers aren’t in, the debut episode of season two only attracted 610,000 viewers. Even when you’ve factored in time-shifted viewing, that’s a long way short of what Canal+ would have been expecting.

The Brits also had a critically acclaimed zombie drama on BBC3 called In the Flesh, which ran for two seasons before it was axed. Stretching the definition a little, you could also include upcoming ITV drama The Frankenstein Chronicles (a reworking of Mary Shelley’s horror masterpiece) in this zombie/undead genre.

Zombie dramas don’t work for every market – Turkey, for example, isn’t big on supernatural scripted shows. But even Korea has dipped its toe in the water with MBC’s two-parter I’m Alive, which aired in 2011.

Interestingly, the word ‘zombie’ probably comes from West Africa and first emerged in its current form in Haitian folklore, where zombies are dead bodies reanimated by magic. That said, there is no strong culture of zombies in Latin American television, though they do pop up in movies.

With TWD still going strong and Ash vs Evil Dead launching this weekend, there’s no sign that the undead are returning to their graves just yet. In fact, there are reports that NBC also wants in on the act. In 2013, the network resurrected an old idea called Babylon Fields and pushed it forward as a pilot. There hasn’t been much news on the show since 2014, but keep your eyes peeled.

tagged in: AMC, Ash Vs. Evil Dead, Babylon Fields, BBC3, Canal+, Carmi Zlotnik, Fear The Walking Dead, Glitch, I’m Alive, In the Flesh, iZombie, Les Revenants, MBC, NBC, Starz, SyFy, The Returned, The Walking Dead, Z Nation

Down with the kids

August 19, 2015The Writers RoomAndrew Marlowe, Blackish, Bradley Bredeweg, Callie Khouri, Castle, Danny Strong, Darren Star, Diane Ruggiero-Wright, Empire, Grey's Anatomy, I Marlene King, iZombie, Kenya Barris, Lee Daniels, Nashville, Peter Paige, Pretty Little Liars, Rob Thomas, The Fosters, YoungerAndy Fry

The TV industry is constantly being told that it is out of touch with the teen audience, which now spends so much of its leisure time snacking content on mobile or immersed in social media. So it was interesting to see which scripted shows came out on top at the Teen Choice Awards, a Fox TV event that invites teens to vote for their favourite stars and shows across a range of categories.

In the Best TV Drama category, the winner was Pretty Little Liars, with Castle, Empire, The Fosters, Grey’s Anatomy and Nashville named on the shortlist.

In the Breakout Show category, the winner was Empire, with Blackish, iZombie, Jane the Virgin and Younger also nominated (also on the latter shortlist was Becoming Us, an ABC Family reality show with a transgender theme).

So this week we’ve decided to give a shout-out to the writers and creators who seem to have their fingers on the teen pulse.

Pretty Little Liars
In previous columns we’ve commented on the huge social media following established by this ABC Family show, created by I Marlene King. King is already committed to two more series of PLL (which is based on books by Sara Shepard) and also made one series of a spin-off called Ravenswood.
Going forward, she has been signed up to adapt Danielle Vega horror novel The Merciless as a film. She is also developing another Shepard novel, The Perfectionists, as a TV series for ABC Family.

Castle
Castle is a crime drama that has been airing on ABC since 2009. Now up to 151 episodes, it was created by Andrew Marlowe and focuses on the love-hate relationship between a homicide detective and a mystery novelist. Marlowe cut his teeth on movies such as Air Force One, End of Days and Hollow Man and is now developing new ideas with ABC Studios. In 2014, the prime responsibility for Castle shifted to David Amann, whose own track record includes Three Rivers, Without a Trace, Crossing Jordan and The X-Files. Amann will not, however, be involved with season eight of Castle, with no news yet about his replacement as showrunner.

Empire
Empire is arguably the biggest breakout series of the last year. A Fox show that focuses on a hip-hop music business, it was created by Lee Daniels and Danny Strong. There was big news regarding Daniels this week, with reports that he is writing, directing and executive producing a new music drama pilot for Fox called Star.
Fox was impressed enough by Daniels’ idea to order a pilot based solely on his outline. Fox TV Group chairman and CEO Dana Walden said of Star: “Like Empire, it’s set against the backdrop of the music business but from a different perspective.”

The Fosters
Another ABC Family show, The Fosters follows the lives of the Foster family, consisting of an interracial lesbian couple raising a blended family of biological, adopted and foster children. Now in its third run, it was created by Peter Paige and Bradley Bredeweg, who still write the opening and closing episodes of each season (the rest being penned by a large writing team).
Paige is actually better known as an actor, having appeared in series such as Queer As Folk, Will & Grace, Grey’s Anatomy and Bones. He and Bredeweg teamed up again as writers on Tut, the Spike miniseries, alongside fellow writer Michael Vickerman.

Nashville
ABC’s country music drama was created by Callie Khouri, who won an Academy Award in 1992 for the Thelma & Louise screenplay. Until Nashville, she mostly worked in movies, writing films such as Something to Talk About, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Mad Money.
Recently Khouri has shared responsibility for key episodes with Dee Johnson, whose many credits include Melrose Place, Commander in Chief and The Good Wife. She was also showrunner on season two of Boss.

Grey’s Anatomy
This long-running ABC series is the creation of Shonda Rhimes – click here for DQ’s in-depth look at the showrunner’s prodco ShondaLand.

Black-ish
Blackish is a sitcom that centres on an upper-middle-class African-American family. Recently renewed for a second season, it was created by Kenya Barris, whose previous credits include The Game, I Hate My Teenage Daughter and Are We There Yet?.
Current projects in the works from Barris include the movie Barbershop 3 and an untitled ‘girl’s trip’ project for Universal that he will co-write with Tracy Oliver, his partner on Barbershop 3.

iZombie
This CW series was developed by Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright and is based on a comic book series of the same name. Thomas has been writing and creating series in the teen/young-adult space for two decades, with credits including Dawson’s Creek, Veronica Mars and 90210.
Ruggiero-Wright also worked on Veronica Mars and counts Dirty Sexy Money among her credits. iZombie recently secured a second-season pick-up.

Jane the Virgin
Jane the Virgin was created by Jennie Snyder Urman, whose recent credits include Emily Owens MD, 90210 and, a few years back, Gilmore Girls.

Younger
Younger is a TV Land series about a 40-year-old recently divorced mother who gets a makeover and passes herself off as a 26-year-old. Recently commissioned for a second season, it was created by Darren Star, whose credits include Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210 and Sex and the City – all of which he also created.

So what can we learn from the tastes of US teenagers? Well, the really inspiring thing to note is the emphatic support for diversity in this mix. Black showrunners, gay showrunners and feminist showrunners all appear in the above list, writing about the widest possible array of characters. The clear message is that US teens are running ahead of the curve in the pursuit of diversity and social equality.

tagged in: Andrew Marlowe, Blackish, Bradley Bredeweg, Callie Khouri, Castle, Danny Strong, Darren Star, Diane Ruggiero-Wright, Empire, Grey’s Anatomy, I Marlene King, iZombie, Kenya Barris, Lee Daniels, Nashville, Peter Paige, Pretty Little Liars, Rob Thomas, The Fosters, Younger

Comic cuts: A round-up of the hottest trailers unveiled in San Diego

July 16, 2015IN FOCUSArrow, Ash vs Evil Dea, Bastard Executioner, Caradog James, Carlton Cuse, Childhood's End, Colony, Comic-Con, Darryl Frank, DC Comics, Doctor Who, El Pantera, Fear The Walking Dead, Gale Anne Hurd, Game of Thrones, Grimm, Heroes Reborn, IDW Publishing, iZombie, Kill Shakespeare., Legends of Tomorrow, Limitless, Marvel, MTV, NBC, Orphan Black, Scorpion, Sherlock, Televisa, The 100, The CW, The Flash, The Machine, Universal Cable Productions, USA Network, Warren EllisGary Smitherman

As the dust settles on another Comic-Con, Michael Pickard rounds up all the news and casts his eye over the hottest trailers that were unveiled to thousands of fans in San Diego.

Comic-Con-fans. Credit-@DCComics — Costumed Comic-Con fans get into the spirit of the event

And so Comic-Con ends for another year. As more than 130,000 people make their way home from the San Diego Convention Centre, the latest round of this annual four-day event has only served to establish it further as the new must-go place for television series, and their producers, directors, writers and cast members, to build up the noise surrounding their launch or return to our screens.

Alongside announcements about series renewals and surprise star appearances, it’s always intriguing to see where television drama – and genre fare in particular – is heading over the coming year.

Panels were hosted by shows including Limitless, Orphan Black, iZombie, Scorpion and Sherlock. Game of Thrones, The 100 and Marvel’s broadcast series – Agent Carter and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – also drew fans to hear gossip from the set and more about what fate might lie in store for their favourite characters.

Elsewhere, MTV announced Teen Wolf had been renewed for a sixth season, while cable network WGN America ordered a third run of its spellbinding period drama Salem.

Comic book drama Arrow released an image of the Green Arrow’s costume ahead of season four launching on The CW this fall, while the casts of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and The Flash, both also on The CW, joined in the fun.

Universal Cable Productions announced it is teaming with Warren Ellis and Gale Anne Hurd (The Walking Dead) to adapt 1970s Mexican network Televisa’s format El Pantera, as well as adapting UK film The Machine with writer Caradog James for Syfy. It has also optioned IDW Publishing comic Kill Shakespeare.

The producer of NBC reboot Heroes Reborn, Imperative Entertainment, said it had optioned rights to adapt Hugh Howey novel Sand, which tells of a family of sand divers who use wetsuit-type technology to dive beneath the desert that covers a lawless dystopian world to retrieve valuable relics that help them survive.

The cast of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow gather at the San Diego event

Minority Report producer Darryl Frank also revealed that Steven Spielberg had been working with executives on the Fox reboot of the celebrated director’s 2002 feature film.

At Syfy, the network revealed new details about its six-hour adaptation of Arthur C Clark’s novel Childhood’s End, and former Lost star Josh Holloway was reunited with the show’s executive producer Carlton Cuse as they discussed their latest collaboration: USA Network’s forthcoming Colony.

Showrunner Bryan Fuller also gave hope to fans of Hannibal that the now-cancelled NBC drama could be resurrected as a feature film, though there were celebrations at the Grimm panel, where the show’s stars and executive producers discussed plans for the NBC series’ landmark 100th episode.

But for all the talk at Comic-Con, its the exclusive clips and trailers that got fans off their seats and on their feet inside the convention centre.

Here DQ showcases trailers for some of the most anticipated shows heading to television over the next year: