Late last week before the holiday weekend began, Netflix announced the cancellation of Dead Boy Detectives after one season. The spin off of The Sandman landed with a complicated history after the series moved from Max to Netflix amid DCU chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran’s unfolding new plan for Max-DC series and movies. At first, this seemed fine, even peachy keen. Netflix felt like an ideal home for the show, which wasn’t integral to The Sandman TV series but was based upon characters who spun off Neil Gaiman’s comic series as a separate title under DC’s Vertigo imprint. As a nice touch, a few The Sandman TV actors did pop into the newer series for cameos.
Dead Boy Detectives found an enthused Netflix following, although as Variety stressed during while exclusively breaking the cancellation news, the show’s streaming numbers were not stratospheric despite landing on the Netflix Top 10 English TV series list for multiple weeks. This rollout also followed Netflix’s four-month-long decision for renewing The Sandman, which Gaiman previously revealed was due to the show being quite expensive in an era when Netflix has stopped rushing to renewal judgment.
The second season of The Sandman remains in production, but let’s just say that viewers are looking for some The Sandman updates now, more than ever.
When Will The Sandman Season 2 Arrive On Netflix?
After Netflix announced (on Tuesday morning) this month’s Geeked Week, the corresponding Twitter/X thread filled with complaints about the Dead Boy Detectives cancellation and the absence of a defined release date for The Sandman‘s next chapter.
Netflix has stayed silent on the release date issue, and The Sandman will have a lengthy post-production process for the effects-heavy series. In other words, 2025 seems likely although not guaranteed. We might, however, receive an answer during the week of Sept. 16-19 because Netflix did pointedly include The Sandman references in the Geeked Week trailer:
Additionally, Netflix has not further elaborated upon Dead Boy Detectives‘ cancellation, but star Jayden Revri (Charles Rowland) acknowledged the sad news on Instagram, where he wrote, “As this chapter closes I can’t help but reminisce on how incredible the last 3 years have been. I absolutely love this show and all of the amazing characters and the lessons they teach. None of them would’ve been bought to life if it wasn’t for my incredible co-stars, who taught me more than I could ever explain in writing.” In response, co-star George Rextrew (Edwin Payne) wrote, “My Charles forever.”
Prior to cancellation, Dead Boy Detectives co-showrunners Steve Yockey and Beth Schwartz revealed that they had planned future cameos from the Endless. Those characters, however, will solely remain on The Sandman for a second season that will adapt the fourth graphic novel, Season of Mists, and from there? Nobody with authority has definitively declared whether this TV series, which debuted three decades after the The Sandman‘s comic book birth, will move into a third chapter.
The Sandman and Dead Boy Detectives are both currently streaming first seasons on Netflix.