Fans are still reeling after news broke that the new DC Universe series Swamp Thing was cancelled less than a week after its premiere episode. While the show will continue airing the remaining episodes on the streaming service, Warner Bros. has confirmed that there will not be a second season. Rumors have started flying about why the show ended, from executives not liking the content to mishaps with state-offered tax breaks in North Carolina.
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Chatter surrounding the busted tax breaks have started to take a life of its own in the last couple days, especially after a local report from StarNews Online seemingly indicated that an error in filing eventually resulted in the cancellation. But the StarNews reporter Hunter Ingram offered some clarification to shed light on the confusing situation.
According to the initial reports, Swamp Thing was reported to get a $40 million tax break from North Carolina, but that amount was drastically reduced after a mixup in the paperwork filings. Now we know that’s not the case, as Ingram explained to ScreenRant.
“On their grant application, they estimated that they would spend almost $20 million on the pilot episode alone, and that’s how they were going to get that $4.9 million back from the grant program separately from the rest of the season,” Ingram said.
The director of the North Carolina Film Office Guy Gaster also disputed those claims.
“In this project specifically, Swamp Thing had funds set aside,” Gaster explained. “Like other states that offer these kinds of programs, it’s all after the work is completed and has been verified in some way. For us, it’s an audit that is to be performed by an independent North Carolina licensed CPA. But they have had an award set aside for just a little north of $4.9 million for their pilot episode, and then an additional $12 million for the remainder of season 1. Those offers were made up front to the production and agreed upon prior to the start of production. So, I certainly would dispute [publications] that have said this was an offer that was somehow pulled back from Warner Bros.”
Gaster’s comments back up Ingram’s own reports, and also point to a less frivolous endeavor on the part of DC Universe than fans initially thought after these reports started to hit the public.
All in all, it sounds like Swamp Thing had a lot of setbacks behind the scenes that all contributed to an early cancellation, which is all more unfortunate because of the good buzz the series is getting from early reviews.
New episodes of Swamp Thing air every Friday on DC Universe.
