The quest has ended for ‘The Shannara Chronicles’, the pricey, ambitious fantasy series that first saw life on MTV before being shuffled off to Spike TV, which is rebranding this week to the Paramount Network. Premiering on MTV in spring of 2016, the pilot for ‘The Shannara Chronicles’, based on the novel series by Terry Brooks, was the most expensive ever for the younger-skewing network. The show was created by Al Gough and Miles Millar (AMC’s ‘Into the Badlands’, ‘Smallville’) who also served as showrunners. Jon Favreau (‘The Jungle Book’, the Marvel Studios films), Dan Farah (‘Ready Player One’) and Jonathan Liebesman (‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’) served as executive producers. The series was renewed for a second season after posting impressive DVR gains among its target demographic, 12-34 year-olds.
Behind-the-scenes shuffling may have doomed this series, however, as Viacom placed Chris McCarthy in charge of MTV– the network’s third president in three years– and ‘The Shannara Chronicles’ was moved to the male-skewing Spike Network. (Its major draw is boxing and MMA fighting matches.) Spike aired a marathon of Season One in order to build excitement for Season Two when it premiered.
The Paramount Network is now planned to be the main hub for Viacom and will mix programming from Spike and TV Land with new projects.
Paramount Network president Kevin Kay said:
“We have officially passed on making any more. Maybe [Sonar Entertainment] is going to take it somewhere else. For us, we passed on the future of that.”
Sonar Entertainment is said to be actively shopping the property around to other potential outlets and reportedly the interactive and merchandising rights are being packaged with the TV rights. ‘The Shannara Chronicles’ stars Austin Butler (Wil), Ivana Baquero (Eretria), Manu Bennett (Allanon), Aaron Jakubenko (Ander) and Marcus Vanco (Bandon) along with new cast members Vanessa Morgan (Lyria), Malese Jow (Mareth), Gentry White (Garet), Caroline Chikezie (Queen Tamlin), and Desmond Chiam (General Riga). The series is filmed in New Zealand.
Are you a fan of this series? Would you like to see the quest continue on another network?
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
