How ‘The Librarians: The Next Chapter’ Landed A Two-Season Order At TNT & Turned The CW Into A Studio
The Librarians, which started as a series of three TV movies starring Noah Wyle for TNT in 2004, is heading home, twenty years later.
Earlier this morning, it emerged that The Librarians: The Next Chapter, a spinoff to the series that ran for four seasons through 2018, would air on TNT, rather than The CW, which originally greenlit the show around May 2023.
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Deadline can reveal that the show has also been handed a two-season order, which includes a first season of 12 episodes that has already been shot and is currently in post-production, as well as a second season. The first season will premiere in 2025.
The move was a surprise for a number of reasons, most notably that the Warner Bros. Discovery network was returning to original scripted series, after a few years out of the game.
“It all started with a phone call I had with Sam Linsky at TNT. He’s been with the show from the very, very beginning in 2004 and I said it was very odd to be working on The Librarians without working with him. He said they were all really jealous about the show,” showrunner Dean Devlin, who also runs Electric Entertainment, which makes the series, told Deadline. “Then about five or six weeks ago, he called and said, ‘Do you think there’s any chance you could move the show from The CW to us, and I said, ‘I don’t know but that seems kind of amazing if that could happen’. I had a phenomenal conversation with the people at The CW, it took a little gymnastics, but they were really supportive. They understood that the idea of bringing the show home was an amazing opportunity.”
The Librarians: The Next Chapter follows the adventures of the custodians of a magical repository of the world’s most powerful and dangerous supernatural artifacts and centres around a Librarian from the past, played by Callum McGowan, who time traveled to the present and now finds himself stuck here. When he returns to his castle, which is now a museum, he inadvertently releases magic across the continent. He is given a new team to help him clean up the mess he made, forming a new team of Librarians.
Jessica Green, Olivia Morris and Bluey Robinson also star with Caroline Loncq guest starring alongside Christian Kane, who will reprise his role as Jacob Stone.
It’s an unusual arrangement; networks including The CW are generally loathe to give up the rights to a show that it has greenlit and paid for, particularly to go to a rival broadcaster.
Devlin called the deal “remarkable”. “The CW were really terrific partners. We [had] to figure out how to reimburse expenses, and how they could enjoy part of the success. They took care of us. We tried to take care of them. I think everybody’s happy with the deal,” he added.
The move puts The CW into the studio business for the first time. Since Nexstar acquired the majority of the company from Warner Bros. and CBS, it has been aggressively looking at new business models and this deal sees them launch The CW Studios, an umbrella that can now house its own co-productions, such as its partnerships with Canadian broadcasters on shows such as Wild Cards.
While The CW had not previously contemplated selling The Librarians: The Next Chapter, it allows them to move into a new stage of business.
“The CW is incredibly proud to have worked alongside Dean Devlin and the entire team at Electric Entertainment to create an extraordinary continuation of The Librarians franchise,” Brad Schwartz, President of Entertainment at The CW, said. “We are thrilled that the series’ original network TNT loves it as much as we do and saw great value bringing it to their audience. It’s a first for CW Studios and we cannot wait for fans to experience this incredible next chapter.”
The early renewal at TNT is also a boon for Electric Entertainment. “Contracts expire after a certain point. I think it was one of these things where they love the show, they want the show, so [said] ‘We know you need to get back in production pretty soon’,” Devlin added.
Next up for Devlin and his team is to figure out a streaming partner for the show.
“We’re only going to begin shopping now. Obviously, this move was so gigantic that it kind of occupied all of our thoughts, so even when we talked about what do we do about streaming and AVOD, it was like ‘Shut up’. But that’s the next thing we do, begin talking to streamers,” he added.
Devlin, whose Electric Entertainment is also behind series such as Amazon Freevee’s Leverage: Redemption, which is a spinoff of another show that aired on TNT, with its third season currently in production, and The Ark, which has aired for two seasons on Syfy.
He said that there’s currently a “very interesting window right now for linear television”.
“We’re seeing such chaos in the streaming world. I think there is a big chunk of the audience that just says, ‘I just want to turn on the TV when I get home. I don’t want to argue with my wife for 40 minutes about what we’re going to watch,” he said. “I know that in general, cable subscriptions are going down, and there is always this prediction of gloom, but I have a slightly different point of view. I think that there was such focus on streaming that we didn’t support linear in the way that we should have. I think now we’re starting to, and I think people are going to be very surprised at the results.”
Devlin exec produces the series alongside Marc Roskin and Rachel Olschan-Wilson of Electric Entertainment and Noah Wyle.
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