The Originals spin-off still in development; Matt Davis, Danielle Rose Russell on board

There was a little while here when we felt as though the recently-discussed The Originals spin-off was dead. After all, there had been no real conversation on the subject of it for months!

With that being said, we are rather grateful now to have something of substance to report. According to Deadline, Matt Davis, who played Alaric Saltzman on The Vampire Diaries and through some appearances on The Originals, has signed on to appear on the show if it goes forward. Meanwhile, Danielle Rose Russell, who plays the teenage version of Hope on The Originals this season, is also set to appear. The same goes for Aria Shahghasemi, who will be playing a friend of Hope’s (and possibly more?) on The Originals this season.

What is the plan for this series, given that there has been no real talk about it happening as of late? It’s not actually filming a traditional pilot or even a backdoor pilot at all. Instead, it will pitch itself via a video presentation that will include potentially some new footage coupled with footage from the upcoming 13-episode season 5. There are many other pilots that it is in contention with, including reboots for both Charmed and Roswell. 

At the moment, it’s too early to say whether or not this spin-off is going to be any good given that so much of it depends on the new version of Hope. If she’s going to be the lead, we need to be able to root for her! It would be great to get more Matt Davis (he was also very good in Cult, even if the rest of the series had its problems) and there is a chance for other familiar faces to pop in here and there. The challenge we see is finding a way to do this without Joseph Morgan (unless Klaus is dead), who is venturing over to appear in Fox’s Gone Baby Gone pilot.

The one clear concern with this new show is simply that the ratings for The Originals as of late have not been great. With that, what is the thirst really going to be out there for people to watch this show, other than a percentage of those fans? We’re not anywhere near as confident on this as we are with the Supernatural spin-off Wayward Sisters, which had a formal backdoor pilot.

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