Vampire Academy Showrunner Has Bad News on Efforts to Save Series

In January, Peacock cancelled fan-favorite series Vampire Academy after just one season and as is the case with many beloved series that meet their end too soon, fans were hopeful that it might find a new life and a new home on another network. Unfortunately, series co-creator Marguerite MacIntyre had some sad news for fans on Wednesday. Taking to social media, MacIntyre posted a video updating fans on Vampire Academy, sharing that she doesn’t see “any avenue forward” for the series — but she’s confident that the story, which is based on novels by Richelle Meade, will be adapted again in the future, even if she’s not a part of it.

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“I have been wanting to say this for a very long time,” MacIntyre said in the video. “Again, thank you for all your love for the show. Thanks for the incredible support, Thanks for you sticking with us through a lot of thin lately.”

She continued, “I don’t have good news. I don’t see any avenue forward. I feel like now is the time to say I’m sorry about that, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. We went a little silent because there wasn’t a lot we could say. We pitched our hearts out, and we tried, and we took it as far as we could.”

“It’s a beautiful show, these are beautiful books, these are beautiful characters. They’ll come back in the world … We cared more than anything that the book fans love what we did, and you guys did, and it meant the world. We thank you. You made it a hit for us. Whatever else happened, it was a hit because you loved it and supported it.”

Vampire Academy came from producers MacIntyre and Julie Plec and told a story of friendship, romance, and danger. In a world of privilege and glamour, two young women’s friendship transcends their strikingly different classes as they prepare to complete their education and enter vampire society, one as a powerful Royal, the other as a half-vampire Guardian trained to protect against the savage “Strigoi” who threaten to tear their society apart. That is, if Royal infighting doesn’t do the job first. The series starred Sisi Stringer, Daniela Nieves, Kieron Moore, Andre Dae Ki, J. August Richards, Anita-Joy Uwajeh, Mia McKenna-Bruce, Rhian Blundell, Jonetta Kaiser, and Andrew Liner.

“I don’t think we really left anything out because what was great about nine was nine sort of feels like a finale. I think if we had ended at nine it could have been a good finale,” MacIntyre previously told ComicBook.com. “So, it felt like it allowed 10 to be the thing that tees up season two and pay some things off and tees some things up. Like the goal is to finish the episode and be like, ‘I cannot wait to see where all these stories go.’”

Peacock executive Susan Rovner later explained the cancellation of Vampire Academy as well as another YA series, One of Us Is Lying, as being a case of it being too soon for series targeting the young adult demographic on the platform.

“I have a history with Julie and Kevin from my Warner days,” Rovner explained. “Both One of Us Is Lying and Vampire Academy, the takeaway was that it was too soon to put those shows up on the platform. What we realized is we have to get the parents before we get the teens. And I’m hoping that once we get the parents with shows like Poker Face and shows like Traitors, that we will be able to do a show like Vampire Academy a few years from now. The timing wasn’t right. We didn’t have the skill yet to support bringing in a young adult audience.”

What do you think about MacIntyre’s comments? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.