Doom Patrol renewed for season 3 by HBO Max
‘Doom Patrol’ Star, EP on Renewal, Fan Reaction
Watch our interview from Comic-Con.
Keep your freak flag flying, because there's more Doom Patrol on the way. Timed to DC FanDome on Saturday, HBO Max announced that they were renewing the live-action superhero series for a third season.
“Doom Patrol came to HBO Max with an already deep and passionate fan base and has risen to the top as one of the most watched Max Originals on the platform,” HBO Max's head of original content Sarah Aubrey said in a statement. “The series sits well in our portfolio and we are glad to greenlight a third season to continue this distinctive style of storytelling that resonates so well with critics and fans alike.”
Based on decades of comics by the same name, Doom Patrol follows some of the weirdest superheroes you'll ever meet — Robotman (Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan), Negative Man (Matt Bomer and Matthew Zuk), Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero), Elasti-Woman (April Bowlby), and Cyborg (Joivan Wade) — as they learn to work together against surreal supervillains that threaten reality. At the end of season 1, the team learned that their mentor and leader Niles Caulder (Timothy Dalton) had been personally responsible for all of the accidents that deformed them and gave them their weird superpowers. Season 2 saw them struggling with that revelation, while also adjusting to the presence of Niles' daughter Dorothy (Abigail Shapiro).
Bob Mahoney/2020 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
The news declares that season 3 of Doom Patrol will be exclusive to HBO Max, which certainly seems to signal the end of the DC Universe platform if that wasn't already clear. Doom Patrol started as an exclusive of DC Universe, and then after HBO Max launched season 2 debuted on both platforms. By the time season 3 rolls around, HBO Max may be the only one standing. Hopefully, the season 3 renewal signals good news for the animated Harley Quinn series, another show that started on DC Universe and has since joined HBO Max, but there's nothing definitive there yet.
The Doom Patrol panel at DC FanDome was in fact moderated by this EW reporter. The conversation touched on a lot of aspects of the show and season 2 in particular, and discussed how it works to have Robotman and Negative Man played by two different actors. Shanahan and Zuk perform those respective characters in costume on set, and then Fraser and Bomer record the dialogue together.
"Collaborating with Matt is really cool. We have conversations about what the character is feeling and what his relationship is to other people, like John in the first season," Zuk said, referring to Negative Man's long lost love. "The way I come at it is, your body holds your emotion. So try to think about, how would you witness your emotion in another person and find where that lives in your body. Posture, speed, rhythm, all of that goes into portraying it. It really is just acting, but instead of thinking about 'How do I say this line?', it's 'How do I make sure this physicality aligns with how I think this line should be said?' And then I give it to Matt and trust he knows what he's doing, which of course he does. It's magic when it comes together."
For his part, Bomer said, "What I love about this job is it's a true collaboration with another artist on the role. Sometimes we'll have a discussion or I'll lay down an initial track, but Matthew is so brilliant with what he finds on set physically that I'll go in and vibe off what he does. It really is a back-and-forth."
Watch the full panel here, and stay tuned for Doom Patrol season 3 in the future.
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