Just one week after the premiere of the first season of streaming service DC Universe’s Swamp Thing show—and less than two months after production of the show was abruptly halted and its episode order was cut from 13 to 10—Swamp Thing has been canceled (though the entire first season will air as planned, with new episodes coming out every week until August).
This comes from Deadline, which notes that the whole DC Universe plan is being “reevaluated” in the wake of AT&T taking over Time Warner and the existing plan to develop a dedicated WarnerMedia streaming service. Also, the higher-ups at Warner were apparently “not particularly high” on Swamp Thing, which seems pretty obvious from cutting the episode order in April. You don’t typically say “actually, I want less of this” if you’re really excited about what you’re seeing.
As for DC Universe itself, beyond it being “reevaluated,” we don’t really know what this means for the streaming service. Insider sources said that subscription numbers were “outpacing expectations” back when Swamp Thing’s order was cut, and DC Universe’s Titans has already been renewed for another season (with Ser Jorah playing Bruce Wayne!), so that could imply that they’re not quite ready to shut down the service just yet. That being said, it’s not like a streaming service has never been shut down even though it had new content already in the pipeline (just ask Seeso), so there is a chance that this is still foreshadowing some big changes in Warner Bros. streaming plans.