HBO Max Orders ‘Dead Boy Detectives’ Series Based On Neil Gaiman DC Comics Characters
HBO Max has given a series order to ‘Dead Boy Detectives‘, based on the DC Comics characters created by Neil Gaiman, which will reunite ‘Supernatural’s Jeremy Carver and Steve Yockey.
‘Dead Boy Detectives’ is a fresh take on a ghost story that explores loss, grief, and death through the lens of Edwin Payne and Charles Rowland, two dead British teenagers, and their very alive friend, Crystal Palace. So, it’s a lot like a vintage detective series — only darker and on acid.
The series comes from Steve Yockey who was Emmy nominated for season one of the brilliant ‘The Flight Attendant’. ‘Dead Boy Detectives’ re-teams him with Jeremy Carver, who is showrunner on the wonderfully bonkers ‘Doom Patrol’, but the duo previously worked together on ‘Supernatural’, so are no strangers to the dark, weird and spooky.
“I’ve been obsessed with this comic for a long time, so it’s a true passion project,” said Yockey. “And Jeremy, Berlanti Productions, DC, WBTV, HBO Max — they’re all encouraging me to run with every wild, bizarre, and unsettling choice. The result is going to be really dark fun.”
Yockey (‘The Flight Attendant’, ‘Supernatural’, ‘Doom Patrol’) wrote the pilot episode and serves as showrunner. Yockey, Carver (‘Doom Patrol’, ‘Supernatural’), Greg Berlanti (‘You’, ‘The Flash’), and Sarah Schechter (‘The Flight Attendant’, ‘You’) are executive producers on the series. Lee Toland Krieger (‘Superman & Lois’, upcoming ‘Green Lantern’) directed the pilot episode and also served as an executive producer on the pilot alongside David Madden (‘Superman & Lois’). Based on characters created for DC by Neil Gaiman and Matt Wagner, the series is produced by Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television. Yockey, Carver, Berlanti Productions, and Krieger are all under overall deals with WBTV.
“We are excited to be expanding further into the DC Universe with Steve, Jeremy and the Berlanti team with this thrilling new spin on a detective series,” adds Sarah Aubrey, Head of Original Content, HBO Max. “We were fascinated by the world of the Dead Boy Detectives that Steve and Jeremy first introduced in ‘Doom Patrol,’ and cannot wait to follow the supernatural sleuths in the lurid mysteries to come.”
Steve Yockey is executive producer and showrunner of HBO Max/WBTV’s hit one-hour darkly comedic thriller ‘The Flight Attendant’ (from star Kaley Cuoco’s Yes, Norman Productions and Berlanti Productions), which returns for season two on April 21 in the USA and 26th May 2022 on Sky Max in the UK. He developed the series, which received nine Emmy nominations in its first season, with Yockey nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series as well as Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. He was previously a writer and co-executive producer of WBTV’s ‘Supernatural’ for The CW. Additional TV writing credits include MTV’s ‘Scream: The Series’ and ‘Awkward’, and HBO’s ‘The Brink’. He also co-wrote (with Carver) the “Dead Patrol” episode of HBO Max/WBTV’s ‘Doom Patrol’, which featured the Dead Boy Detectives as guest stars, with Sebastian Croft as Charles, Ty Tennant as Edwin, and Madalyn Horcher as Crystal.
However, this version will have different actors taking on the lead roles. George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri (‘The Lodge’) star as Dead Boy Detectives Edwin Payne (Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Revri), with Kassius Nelson (‘Last Night in Soho’, ‘Hollyoaks’) as Crystal Palace. Additional series stars include Briana Cuoco (‘The Flight Attendant’, ‘Harley Quinn’) as Jenny the Butcher, Ruth Connell (‘Supernatural’) as the Night Nurse (reprising her role from the “Dead Patrol” episode of ‘Doom Patrol’), Yuyu Kitamura (‘The Expatriates’) as Niko, and Jenn Lyon (‘Claws’, ‘Justified’) as Esther.
‘Dead Boy Detectives‘ does not have a premiere date, but if you want to keep track of this or any other shows, you can add them via our Never Miss system, and you’ll be notified when they get a UK premiere date.
