Scream, Vampire Diaries Creators Adapting Dead Day Comic for Peacock

Peacock has given a series order to a television adaptation of the AfterShock comic book Dead Day.

The supernatural TV show, based on the comic created by Ryan Parrott, was given a straight-to-series order from the NBCUniversal streaming service. It will see Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, Legacies) and Kevin Williamson (Scream, The Vampire Diaries, Dawson’s Creek) serve as co-showrunners, writers, and executive producers.

“I’m extremely grateful to AfterShock Comics for developing Dead Day with me and helping to bring it to life,” Parrott said. “I am beyond excited that Julie Plec, Kevin Williamson, Universal TV and Peacock have embraced its universality and are bringing Dead Day to television. And there are more Dead Day comics to come—stay tuned for news of the second volume!”

Published in March 2021, Dead Day centers on the eponymous annual event, which sees the deceased return from the grave. Many of them visit loved ones and take care of unfinished business, but others use their time to torment the living. The series was well-received upon release and was recently given an order for a second volume.

“When AfterShock first greenlit Ryan Parrott’s Dead Day comic book series, we immediately knew we’d acquired a concept that could live and breathe far beyond the printed page of the comic,” AfterShock Comics editor in chief Mike Marts said. “We were overjoyed when Kevin and Julie shared that same interest and enthusiasm in the potential for this series.”

Williamson burst onto the scene with the script for 1996’s Scream, directed by Wes Craven. He’d go on to write seminal ’90s horror films I Know What You Did Last Summer and The Faculty. After transitioning to television writing, Williamson would eventually team up with Plec to create The Vampire Diaries for The CW in 2009. The pair previously worked on Scream 2, written by Williamson and associate produced by Plec.

Since The Vampire Diaries took off, Plec has created spinoffs The Originals and Legacies. She’s currently developing the Peacock series Vampire Academy based on the popular book series of the same name, and her show The Endgame arrives Feb. 12 on NBC. Williamson, meanwhile, just finished writing the film Sick and served as an executive producer on the recent fifth Scream movie.