DEXTER Creator Slams Paramount+ After ORIGINAL SIN Gets Axed: TRINITY Spinoff “On the Back-Burner”
The world of Dexter was about to get bigger, but now it looks like Paramount+ has slammed on the brakes. After renewing the prequel series Dexter: Original Sin for a second season earlier this year, the streamer abruptly reversed course and canceled the show.
Series creator Clyde Phillips is speaking out, and he’s not holding back about his frustration with how things went down.
On the Dissecting Dexter podcast, Phillips explained just how poorly the decision was handled.
“It was a tough phone call that I got that night. They had already picked up the show, and I’d informed all the writers and informed all the actors, and then they un-picked it up. It wasn’t handled well, and I’m not happy about it.”
The cancellation stings even more considering how much planning had already gone into building out the Dexter-verse.
Original Sin followed a younger Dexter Morgan, played by Patrick Gibson, and was setting the stage for an expanded universe of stories. Phillips revealed that Paramount’s merger with Skydance played a major role in shaking up those plans.
According to Phillips, former Paramount boss Chris McCarthy was pushing to grow the franchise in the same way Taylor Sheridan has expanded Yellowstone.
“He wanted me to be his new Taylor Sheridan. We plotted out a couple of years of this, looking forward to introducing new characters.”
That roadmap included potential prequels focusing on younger versions of James Doakes (played by Erik King) and Captain Matthews (Geoff Pierson), as well as two other major projects Phillips had already sunk serious time into.
One was a prequel called Trinity, centered on the chilling serial killer made famous by John Lithgow in the original Dexter. Phillips shared that he and a writers room completed 10 scripts for the spinoff, along with 10 more scripts for a series about Dexter’s son Harrison.
That show, Phillips noted, would have gone in a “completely different direction than where he ended up in Resurrection, because Dexter wasn’t involved.”
Unfortunately, those scripts may never see the light of day. Phillips said he spent a year “writing all these shows” and “creating the [Dexter]-verse,” only for the Paramount merger to derail it all.
When asked if there’s any progress on Trinity, Phillips was blunt. It’s still sitting on the “back-burner. I honestly don’t think [Paramount is] going to go for it. I just think they’re interested in Resurrection.”
And that’s where things stand. Paramount+ is reportedly opening a writers room for a second season of Dexter: Resurrection, but other spinoffs are in limbo. Phillips is skeptical that Trinity has a shot.
“If they cancel Original Sin, which is a built-in hit, how are they going to pick up Trinity? If they do, I’d be delighted, but I don’t see them doing it.”
For fans of Dexter, it’s a tough pill to swallow. What was once shaping up to be an exciting shared universe has been cut short, leaving only Resurrection moving forward.