DC’s Dead Boy Detectives series orders pilot for HBO Max

Neil Gaiman’s fantasy world seems to have put a spell on film and TV show makers. The DC comic book characters, Dead Boy Detectives, created by Gaiman, are all set to get their own series at HBO Max, with its pilot episode getting greenlit recently. The duo had first made their appearance in the author’s The Sandman comics, way back in 1991. According to a report in Variety, the series will be expected to begin shooting come November 2021.

Neil Gaiman’s morbid comic book characters are two young boarding school boys named Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland, who decide to stay back on earth even after their deaths and make use of their ghostly abilities and don the role of detectives. The cases they investigate mostly involve children as young as themselves. Although their initial appearances were as supporting characters in Gaiman’s more prominent works, their popularity soon earned them dedicated books of their own by other authors, such as Sandman Presents: Dead Boy Detectives.The characters had also made an appearance on screen before in the American superhero series Doom Patrol, another DC comic adaptation, where they were played by Sebastian Croft and Ty Tennant.

The series will add to the ever growing list of Neil Gaiman works who have gotten adaptations for the silver screen. Good Omens, American Gods and Lucifer are just a few. The author’s The Anansi Boys had been picked up by Amazon Studios earlier this year and is set to start filming soon.

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Dead Boy Detectives will have Steve Yockey, known for his critically-acclaimed and Emmy Award-nominated series The Flight Attendant, as writer and executive producer for the pilot episode. Other executive producers of the project include Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and David Madden. Warner Bros Television will bankroll the upcoming show.