‘Penny Dreadful’ IS coming back – but not as you remember it!

Nearly three years after it was cancelled, Penny Dreadful is being brought back to life.

The British-American horror period drama series launched in May 2014 and ran for three seasons on Showtime in the USA and on Sky in the UK.

Set in Victorian London, Penny Dreadful featured many characters from 19th-century Gothic fiction, including Dorian Gray, Van Helsing, Count Dracula, Victor Frankenstein and his monster, and Dr. Henry Jekyll.

The cast included James Bond stars Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights), Eva Green (Casino Royale) and Rory Kinnear (Skyfall), alongside Billie Piper (Doctor Who), Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbor) and Helen McCrory (Peaky Blinders).

The show’s final episode aired in June 2016, with no prior announcement that the series was ending, although it was apparently always intended that Season 3 would conclude the story.

Rumours surfaced last October that Showtime was planning to revive the world of Penny Dreadful.

It’s now been announced that the show will indeed return with a new spin-off set in 1938 Los Angeles, introducing a brand new cast.

There’s no news yet on whether the characters will include more famous names from fiction.

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is described as “a spiritual descendant of the Penny Dreadful story” set in “a time and place deeply infused with Mexican-American folklore and social tension.”

The press-release teases: “Rooted in the conflict between characters connected to the deity Santa Muerte and others allied with the Devil, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels will explore an exciting mix of the supernatural and the combustible reality of that period, creating new occult myths and moral dilemmas within a genuine historical backdrop.

“This chapter is a bold new vision that will employ all new characters and storylines.”

Penny Dreadful creator John Logan will return to write and executive produce the new series.

Eva Green returns to our screens later this year in the BBC’s new adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s novel The Luminaries, set in New Zealand during the 1860s gold rush.

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is expected to premiere in autumn 2019.

The first three seasons of Penny Dreadful are available on DVD Amazon.