‘Shadowhunters’ Showrunner on Network’s Response to ‘Racy Material': ‘Bring It’

“Shadowhunters” executive producer Ed Decter says the show will be more mature than something you’d expect from a network that has the word “family” in its name (at least, it will until Feb. 12).

“I said [to ABC Family/Freeform] the show was going to be darker, sexier,” Decter said at a TCA panel on Saturday. “It’s got some racy content, and they said, ‘Bring it.'”

The fans, on the other hand, proved harder to please.

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“Shadowhunters,” which will premiere on Feb. 12, is based on the YA series of novels by Cassandra Clare and follows an unrelated movie adaptation from 2013.

Though that brings to the show a built-in audience of fans of the series, it also brings with it a set of preconceived notions from fans as to what the show should be. That includes things as slight as whether or not the show’s male lead, played by Dominic Sherwood, speaks with a British accent or an American one.

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“It’s strange to me that there are expectations of things as small as — or as large to some people – as an accent,” Sherwood said.

Fans of the books scrutinized every aspect of the show from the moment it was announced, Decter says. That actually gave the producers a good gauge against which to measure their decisions.

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“The amazing thing was that Cassie and her fans were almost like an approval-meter for what we’re doing,” he said.