HBO Max Reportedly Recasts Dead Boy Detectives For Doom Patrol Spinoff Pilot
HBO Max's Dead Boy Detectives pilot has reportedly landed its main cast, and it doesn't include the actors who played the lead characters in an episode of Doom Patrol's most recent season. George Rexstrew, Jayden Revri (The Lodge), and Kassius Nelson (Last Night in Soho, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events) will headline the series' pilot episode, according to Variety. The episode will be Rextrew's first on-screen credit since graduating from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Per the report, reps for both HBO Max and Warner Brother's Television declined to comment on the reported casting.
Dead Boy Detectives is based on characters that Neil Gaiman co-created with Matt Wagner in the pages of The Sandman in 1991. The titular sleuths are Charles Rowland (Revri) and Edwin Paine (Rexstrew), two young boys who, following their deaths, decided to eschew the afterlife in favor of investigating supernatural crimes on Earth. Crystal Palace (Nelson), a medium, joins them in their investigations.
Sebastian Croft and Ty Tennant portrayed the Dead Boy Detectives in Doom Patrol's third season, with Madalyn Horcher as Palace. Those actors are not involved in the new pilot episode, though Ruth Connell (Supernatural, For the Love of George) will reprise her role as Night Nurse from Doom Patrol. The rest of the pilot's reported cast includes Alexander Calvert (Supernatural, Arrow) as Thomas The Cat King; Briana Cuoco (The Flight Attendant, Harley Quinn) as Jenny, a "mildly punk butcher and a confidant of Crystal Palace;" Jenn Lyon (Claws, Justified) as Esther, "a witch obsessed with youth and immortality;" and Yuyu Kitamura (The Expatriates, Mother Tongue) as Niko, "a boarding school student intent on joining the Dead Boy Detectives agency who now lives above Jenny's butcher shop."
Steve Yockey is writing the pilot episode and serving as its executive producer. Jeremy Carver is also an executive producer. Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and David Madden are executive producers on behalf of Berlanti Productions. Warner Bros. Television is the studio overseeing the project. Production on the pilot is already in progress.
Carver previously developed Doom Patrol for HBO Max. He serves as that show's executive producer and showrunner.
Dead Boy Detectives is the latest in a recent string of Gaiman adaptations. His novel American Gods became a television series for three seasons before Starz pulled the plug, leaving its future uncertain. Gaiman himself served as showrunner on Good Omens, Amazon's adaptation of the novel he co-wrote with the late Terry Pratchett. Fans were surprised to learn that the series is returning for a second season. Amazon will also stream the upcoming adaptation of Gaiman's novel Anansi Boy. Netflix recently debuted the final season of Lucifer, another series on a character created in The Sandman. The Sandman itself is expected to debut on Netflix in 2022.
