Trivia / Swamp Thing (2019)

• Billing Displacement: Despite playing the title character, Derek Mears is billed fourth. While top-billed Crystal Reed (Abby Arcane) is arguably as much - if not more - of a protagonist as Mears is, second-billed Virginia Madsen (Maria Sutherland) plays mostly a supporting character and third-billed Andy Bean (Alec Holland) has a Small Role, Big Impact, although his high billing was probably to conceal the twist that Swamp Thing is not Alec Holland.
• California Doubling: Set in Marais, Louisiana, filmed in North Carolina.
• Dawson Casting: Abby Arcane was supposed to be born in 1988 but is played by Crystal Reed who was born in 1985.
• Fake American: Danish Maria Sten as Liz Tremayne and Canadian Kevin Durand as Jason Woodrue.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Derek Mears almost exclusively plays villains - his breakthrough role was a certain horror icon - but in Swamp Thing, he's the hero.
  • Although playing villains is common for him, Kevin Durand typically portrays intimidating tough guys because of his imposing frame and height. Here, he's a socially-awkward and soft-spoken antagonist who's an intellectual threat instead of a physical one. When he mutates at the end of the series, however, it becomes clear why he got the role.
• Screwed by the Network: Warner Brothers just never seemed to get behind the show in the slightest, first cutting three episodes from the first season, and then making it the only season less than a week after the first episode was released. And with that episode alone getting quite a lot of critical and fan support, a lot of people are wondering if there was some serious personal beef going on among the crew...
  • Other reported issues on the corporate side which likely affected the cancellation are that the series received much less in tax rebates than expected from the state of North Carolina where it was filmed due to an accounting error, and the lukewarm reception of the DC Universe app in general added to the pressure of the incoming "streaming war" between Disney+, Netflix, HBO Max and whatnot has led to some discussion of it being rolled into said wider Warner Bros. streaming service.
  • While the series hasn't hit full Keep Circulating the Tapes status (it's available to purchase on VOD websites and physical media), it is also notably the only DC Universe series that hasn't been made available on HBO Max as of September 2021.
• What Could Have Been: There were plans for a three season long story arc and a Justice League Dark spin-off.

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