Add DC’s Strange Adventures to the list of HBO Max projects that have recently been placed on the chopping block following the Warner Bros. Discovery merger.
Writer and director Kevin Smith first shared on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast that the DC Comics series will not be moving forward at the streaming service. Sources have confirmed to Deadline that that is, in fact, the case.
Strange Adventures was given a green light for development, along with a Green Lantern-inspired show, in 2019. Green Lantern appears to still remain on track.
Smith, who was set to direct and co-write an episode of the series, said on the podcast that the episode was to have revolved around Bizarro and Jimmy Olsen.
“[Axing Strange Adventures] kind of made sense to me — nobody necessarily knows these characters, and it sounded like an expensive show,” Smith said on the podcast.
Strange Adventures shares its name with a classic DC Comics series that premiered in 1950 and broke new ground as the first science-fiction anthology title from the venerable publisher of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman. The easy days of the series were dominated by vivid but outlandish fare with B-movie concepts (Challenge of the Gorilla Genius, The Man with the Comet Head, The Skyscraper That Came to Life) but the series eventually introduced a gallery of sci-fi adventure heroes (Space Ranger, Star Hawkins, and the Atomic Knights among them).
The publishing history of Strange Adventures took a sharp turn after 200 monthly issues when it became more of a supernatural mystery-based franchise. Those 1960 issues included one of the most compelling DC characters of that era with the forlorn Deadman, the Neal Adams-created spectral hero who cannot be seen or heard but can possess the bodies of the living.
Strange Adventures was to be produced by Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros Television, with Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and showrunner-writer John Stephens as executive producers. Charlie Huston served as a co-executive producer, Brigitte Hales was a producer, and Selwyn Seyfu Hinds was a consulting producer.
