HBO Max does not plan on continuing forward with Degrassi. The popular Canadian teen series is just one of many casualties of cutbacks as a result of the merger that occurred earlier this year between Discovery and WarnerMedia, first announced by the Wall Street Journal.
Degrassi was supposed to have ten one-hour-long episodes that would have targeted its U.S. launch date in 2023, operated by showrunners Julia Cohen (Riverdale, A Million Little Things) and Lara Azzopardi (Mary Kills People, Lost Girl), according to Entertainment Weekly. Whether anyone from the former cast members of the surviving franchise was going to participate in this new rendition is unknown. The Degrassi franchise has been running its course for more than 40 years and has had many versions that include the most known Degrassi: Next Class and Degrassi: The Next Generation.
The company that owns the Degrassi franchise, WildBrain, was producing the new teen series. A statement from WildBrain disclosed “discussions concerning the contract with WarnerMedia are ongoing,” suggesting that the company might be looking for a new avenue for the series to continue, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“We didn’t take one show off a platform that would help us in any way,” said David Zaslav, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO, upholding the cuts on the company’s quarterly earnings business call last Thursday. Zaslav guaranteed to “replace those shows with content that has a chance to be more successful, and have a larger audience.”
Degrassi has a legacy that dates back to 1979 when the first premiere featured a group of young teens living on De Grassi Street in Toronto. Over the past decade, this TV staple has been the starting point for stars like Nina Dobrev (The Vampire Diaries, The Perks of Being a Wallflower) and Aubrey Gresham, better known as Drake (Anchorman, Ice Age: Continental Drift).
According to ScreenRant, this new Degrassi revival would have been a transformation of the Degrassi franchise., while also remaining loyal to the original aspects of “fundamental honesty and humanity” of the brand.