Guy Gasser, director of the North Carolina Film Office, said the report’s description of a tax-transaction trapdoor opening up under the fledgling series doesn’t match the facts. The numbers were way off, too, by citing a tax credit sum ($40 million) that not only exceeds the maximum payment per season for any production (which is $12 million), but it also exceeds the NC Film Office’s entire annual budget ($31 million).

MAY 11, 2020 2:15pm PT by Lesley Goldberg

'Swamp Thing,' Canceled at DC Universe, Coming to The CW
The younger-focused broadcaster has also acquired two more shows from the U.K. and Canada.
DC Universe/WBTV
'Swamp Thing'

Fresh off of adding the first two seasons of the CBS All Access anthology Tell Me a Story, the younger-skewing broadcaster has licensed DC Universe's Swamp Thing and picked up the Canadian drama Coroner and the U.K. comedy Dead Pixels. It's unclear when any of the four shows will make their debut on The CW's linear network (and its ad-supported free streaming service, CW Seed). News of premiere dates could come later this week when The CW is expected to announce its fall schedule.

Swamp Thing, starring Crystal Reed and based on the DC title of the same name, will become the second DC Universe series to air on The CW, joining Stargirl, whose episodes will debut on the linear network a day after they launch on the streamer. The network is a joint venture between DC Universe backers Warner Bros. TV and CBS TV Studios, with the latter behind Tell Me a Story. The decision to pick up one show from each company's streamer is in line with The CW's history of splitting new series orders evenly between both studios.

Swamp Thing was a buzzy pickup for Warner Bros. TV-backed streamer DC Universe. The series, executive produced by James Wan, was the third scripted original picked up for the comic book-focused subscription video platform. Based on the Alan Moore comics, trouble began with the series in April 2019, when the show's initial 13-episode order was reduced to 10 as the future of DC Universe amid parent company WarnerMedia's plan for a broad-skewing streamer (HBO Max) emerged.

In June, a mere five days after the first of the weekly episodes premiered on DC Universe, the platform — whose role within WarnerMedia and HBO Max remains unclear — canceled Swamp Thing. Despite promising reviews, insiders believed that they had a dud on their hands and, rather than pull the plug on the project and lose millions already invested with nothing to show for it, the studio opted instead to complete work on the series and use it to bolster the library content on the DC Universe platform that serves as a value-add to its massive digital comic book library. Sources at the time said the timing of the cancellation was spurred by the studio's decision to bypass paying millions to store the show's physical sets in North Carolina. That decision led to the cancellation leak.