Dexter Morgan may be dead, but Dexter, the franchise, will live on. Showtime has a number of Dexter spinoffs in development, including a prequel. The Hollywood Reporter has the news that, despite the cancelation last week of the sequel series Dexter: New Blood, the Dexter franchise will play a major role in the future of Showtime, which just merged with corporate sibling Paramount+.
In the works is a prequel, depicting the budding serial killer’s origin story. As seen in various flashbacks throughout the original series, it revolved around Dexter’s adoptive father, police detective Harry Morgan (James Remar), teaching him to use his serial-killing instincts for a twisted version of good, rather than evil. Also on the network’s slate are spinoffs focusing on the origins of the notable serial killers who fell into Dexter’s orbit over the course of the series. This includes Arthur Mitchell, the Trinity Killer, a seemingly-mild-mannered family man who leads a double life as one of America’s most prolific serial killers. Memorably portrayed by John Lithgow in the series’ fourth season, in a performance that earned him an Emmy, Mitchell is widely considered to be Dexter’s best nemesis.
Based on a series of crime novels by Jeff Lindsay, Dexter debuted in 2006, and starred Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan, a Miami forensic scientist who channeled his uncontrollable urge to kill into murdering the city’s numerous other serial killers, while staying one step ahead of his police colleagues and his adoptive sister. The series ended in 2013, after eight seasons, with a widely-panned finale that saw Morgan’s sister die while the so-called “Bay Harbor Butcher” himself escaped Miami to live a life of anonymity as a lumberjack.
The series was revived last year with Dexter: New Blood, in which Morgan’s old life caught up with him in the form of his long-lost son, Harrison (Jack Alcott); at the series’ conclusion, Dexter died at the hands of his son. New Blood was Showtime‘s most-watched series ever, scoring an average of eight million viewers per episode. It was enough that a second season, presumably focusing on Harrison, was being mulled, but it was canceled to make way for the other spinoffs Showtime has planned.
The Dexter spinoffs will be overseen by Clyde Phillips, who served as showrunner for the first four seasons of Dexter and returned to produce Dexter: New Blood. He previously expressed regret over how the series ended after he departed.
via Collider
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