Supernatural Whenever World News, October 18 Edition

ByAlice Jester

It’s been a real busy week for SPN news, so it’s time to do another installment of SWWN!  We have some Walker news, Jensen new project news, some renewal news about shows from former producers, and of course, the return of Creation SPN cons!  This weekend was the big con in Denver, and I’ve scraped together all the highlights that I could gather in a limited amount of time.  

Jensen

This announcement generated some huge buzz among the fandom.  Jensen will be in a movie, Rust, co-starring with Alec Baldwin!  Better yet, it’s a western which is always on his wish list.  Here are the details per Deadline:

The story follows an infamous Western outlaw Harland Rust (Baldwin) has had a bounty on his head for as long as he can remember. When his estranged 13-year-old grandson Lucas (Noon) is convicted of an accidental murder and sentenced to hang, Rust travels to Kansas to break him out of prison. Together, the two fugitives must outrun the legendary U.S. Marshal Wood Helm (Ackles) and bounty-hunter Fenton “Preacher” Lang (Fimmel) who are hot on their tail. Deeply buried secrets rise from the ashes and an unexpected familial bond begins to form as the mismatched duo tries to survive the merciless American Frontier.

It seems that shooting has already started.  Here’s a little behind the scenes photo from Jensen on Instagram:

Speaking of Jensen, what a sweet family picture, no?  The kids are growing so fast!  Courtesy of wife Danneel on Instagram.  

FamilyPhoto

Jared 

Season two of Walker is only a week and a half away.  How about a promo from the CW?

It seems that Jared is also working in some precious family time.  Of course this playdate with daughter Odette exploded the fandom.  Huge props to Jared for sharing such an event with everyone.  Not every Dad would do this! 

Other SPN Alums

The Boys

Oh Eric Kripke, what a way to launch a spinoff announcement!  This is a guy that always seems to merge his vast dork pop culture knowledge with a big project announcement.  

The Boys is getting a spinoff.  Michelle Fazekas and Tara Butters will be the show runners.  Those two had their hands in many shows, including a CW show that went a couple of seasons, Reaper.  This is the premise according to Deadline:

As previously announced, Jaz Sinclair, Lizze Broadway, Shane Paul McGhie, Aimee Carrero, Reina Hardesty, and Maddie Phillips are set to portray young superheroes on the show set at America’s only college exclusively for young-adult superheroes (run by Vought International). The Untitled The Boys spinoff is described as an irreverent, R-rated series that explores the lives of hormonal, competitive Supes as they put their physical, sexual, and moral boundaries to the test, competing for the best contracts in the best cities. It’s part college show, part Hunger Games— with all the heart, satire, and raunch of The Boys.

Oh, but the announcement didn’t end there. This happens to be my most favorite Eric Kripke quote ever now.

“Much like Mork & Mindy spun-off from Happy Days—which is an insane and true fact—our spinoff will exist in the Vought Cinematic Universe, yet have a tone and style all its own. It’s our take on a college show, with an ensemble of fascinating, complicated, and sometimes deadly Young Supes,” said The Boys’ executive producer and showrunner Kripke. “Michele and Tara are stone-cold geniuses, we’re thrilled to have them steer this ship, and grateful to Sony and Amazon for the opportunity. We love this show and can’t wait for you to see it. Also, Baywatch Nights spun-off from Baywatch, and it had vampires. Vampires!”

Vampires!  ?

The Boys is getting some PR out there while we’re waiting for season three.  Some cast members recently did a panel at New York Comic Con.  Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Chace Crawford, and Karen Fukuhara all were part of a panel that shared some inside secrets about seasons one and two, but didn’t touch much on season three.  TV Insider has all the details:

https://www.tvinsider.com/1017552/the-boys-new-york-comic-con-2021-panel-recap/

Actors Frances Turner, Kristin Booth and Jack Doolan are joining season three of The Boys as regular cast members.  Sounds like Booth and Doolan will tie into the Soldier Boy story, played by Jensen Ackles.  Here’s a cool little snippet from the announcement article in Deadline about what to expect in season three:

The third part of the series will tell the story of Vought’s first superhero, Soldier Boy (played by Jensen Ackles) and his Payback team, focusing on his WW II exploits and more.

Doom Patrol

This was announced at this weekend’s DC FanDome event, but Doom Patrol has been renewed by HBO Max for season four!  The show is executive produced and run by former SPN showrunner Jeremy Carver.  Doom Patrol is currently dropping new episodes for season three each Thursday through November 11 on HBO Max.  Congrats to Jeremy and everyone involved with the show!  

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Sera Gamble’s most recent show also got a nod for season four last week by Netflix.  Here’s the super creepy announcement from Netflix via YouTube:

The show also had a panel on the online only PaleyFest NY on October 15th.   The full panel, including Sera Gamble, is on YouTube:

Even former SPN showrunner Andrew Dabb has some news!   Netflix has given his series Grendel an 8 episode order.  

http://www.ksitetv.com/grendel/netflix-orders-grendel-series-from-supernatural-ep-andrew-dabb/218181/

Con Circuit

The big con news of course is the return of the first in person Creation Entertainment Supernatural convention since March 2020.  Supernatural Official Convention – Denver took place this weekend from October 15 – October 17.  This was also the first convention since the show had ended which led to some different scheduling from past events.  Due to scheduling conflicts, Jensen could only attend the convention on Saturday, so he and Jared ended up doing solo panels.  Jensen’s was on Saturday, Jared’s on Sunday.  However, they still did manage to do a joint Gold Member only panel on Saturday.  

Convention guests aside from Jared and Jensen were Misha Collins, Jim Beaver, Alexander Calvert, Mark Pellegrino, Samantha Smith, Rob Benedict, Matt Cohen, Brianna Buckmaster, Kim Rhodes, Adam Fergus, Gil McKinney, Chad Lindberg, Jake Abel and Jason Manns.  Richard Speight Jr. had to cancel for good reason, he’s directing an episode of Kung Fu right now!  Rob Benedict took on the weekend hosting duties as well as playing with the house band Louden Swain.  Jake Abel was the last minute replacement for Richard.  

Emotions were pretty high in the crowd.  A lot of these actors hadn’t seen each other in a while after routinely being part of these cons for years.  Jared, Jensen, and Misha were pretty emotional since they hadn’t seen each other since episode 5.18 had filmed.



 Fans were just elated to see each other after a long break as well!  

Here are some more tweets of the event from our dear friend Lynn at Fangasm that gives a small taste of the highlights of the con:

















Then there’s this tweet from Friday:

Our dear Screencapping Goddess Raloria also has compiled tons of tweets from SPN Denver on her Wakelet.  She has it all broken down by panel!  

https://wakelet.com/@raloriaspn_Zlcr5u

I myself have only been able to watch one panel online, but I will say that if you search on YouTube, you’ll see videos of the panels (not endorsing any specific videos without permission).  The one panel I did watch was rather captivating and warrants a recap since it tries to address a couple of flash points for the fandom.  I am talking about the half hour special Gold Member Jared and Jensen panel that took place on late Saturday afternoon.  

Jared and Jensen Gold Panel

It all started out pretty fun.  Both came out to roaring cheers from the crowd, with Jared wearing an awesome cowboy hat, until he took it off and put on his trademark beanie.  I’m not sure exactly when I had heard this, it was a few years ago, but Jared wears beanies to control all the sweating he does during these events.  The only problem is, it hides the hair! Jensen, seeing the move, decided to take the discarded cowboy hat and put it on his head.  Smart man!  

They both asked each other about their recent projects (Walker and The Boys) and Jensen shared a hilarious story about filming a rather…interesting scene on The Boys.  For anyone who’s seen The Boys “interesting” is code for pretty f’ed up.  Jensen mentioned that a few times!  Jensen explained it this way:

“There was one particular episode that’s happening in season three that’s very anticipated by its loyal fans.  I hadn’t been filming in that particular set yet, a day late to the party, it’s basically a superhero sex party.  As I’m walking in, the anticipation is killing me, I’m like ‘Oh my gosh, what’s is going to look like in there.’  They rented out this huge mansion that was just gaudy and perfect and I see a camera operator standing there, his mask is down and he’s eating a sandwich and he looks a little traumatized.  I was like, ‘Hey man, what’s going on?’  He’s like, ‘Hey Jensen.”  I’m like, ‘You good what’ going on up there?”  He’s like, “I’ve seen some shit man.  I’ve seen some shit.”  He was already PTSD and we hadn’t even gone to lunch yet.  And he was right.  I went up there and Jack Quaid was like, “I cannot wait to see your face.”  I was like, “Oh my gosh, what’s happening?”  I can’t unsee it.”

He goes into some more really strange detail, but I won’t go that far.  As Jared pries for more information, Jensen shuts it down.  “I don’t know if you’re old enough to see this.” 

Jensen did talk about getting the part in his new western, Rust.  He has called it his best filming experience outside of Supernatural, but that’s because it’s a western.

“I’ve wanted to be in a Western since I was six years old.  I had this little sheriff’s vest with the fringe on it and the badge.   That used to hang at the end of my bed along with my cap gun holsters.  At 6:00 I’d put the vest on, my belt on, my hat on and I’d head into the kitchen for my fruit loops.”  He even demonstrated himself on the set firing a gun and quickly returning it back to the holster.  The weapons tech that was helping him wasn’t that impressed with that move.    

How did he get the part?  He was called by his agent a week after he got back from filming The Boys in Toronto.  His agent setup a Zoom call and when they connected the director was there with Alec Baldwin.  Alec pitched the idea for 30 minutes and Jensen was like, “I can stop you.  You had me at hello.”  He was suspicious that there was someone else they cast for the role before he got the part since it was so close to shooting.  Yes, there was, but that person had to drop out due to scheduling.  He can’t say who it was, but they thought of him as great replacement so here he is. He had to shoot on Sunday, thus the appearance at the con on Saturday.  

Now the discussion turned to the finale.  A fan said that the loved the finale.  Jared had a response for that!  “You loved the finale?  We both f***ing died!”  Jensen even grabbed his t-shirt to simulate a protruding object from his chest.  After a few laughs though, the conversation turned pretty serious.  It was a really tough scene to film.  

Were there changes to the script?  Yes.  Originally in the script Dean was supposed to be lying down.  Jensen fought for him to be standing up so he and Jared could face each other.   They added the call back to the Pilot about not doing this alone.  It was a really tough scene to prepare for.  Going through the lines was difficult.  “I couldn’t read the scene without crying,” confessed Jared.  They told them to reset for another take after shooting the death scene and Jared was like, “I need two days.”  He was that emotional.    

It was very difficult to get to the part where Dean’s hand falls.  Jensen explained the process.  “At the beginning of the scene it’s just Sam going into triage mode.  ‘Okay, an injury, my brother’s injured, let me handle this.’  It’s not even close to being emotional, it’s just run of the mill, we’ve had injuries before, let’s just deal with it they way we always do.  Going from that to…for me Dean’s processing it like, ‘I don’t think I’m coming away from this. Nope, I’m not walking away from this.  There was that whole shift.  He’s (Sam) dealing with just being a triage doctor, I’m (Dean) going from like, ‘Is this it?  Oh wow, this is.  Okay, get your stuff together because you’ve got some things to say and you need to do that right now because you don’t know how much time you have left.’  I even threw in that line, not sure if they used it, “I don’t know how much time I’ve got so you listen up right now.” 

Jensen further explained, “It was not hard to find the emotion, the difficult part was keeping the emotion in check and not letting it get out of control. I’m sure you’ve all had the hard cries and your body starts to react, sometimes it can be like convulsing and we both could have easily gotten to that point but that doesn’t look good on camera.”  

They were given the freedom to improvise and do their thing and deviate from the script a bit.  “It was Jared and Jensen saying goodbye to Sam and Dean as well.  It was hard,” said Jensen.  “I remember seeing some of the crew have to leave set, because they couldn’t watch it.  That was new.  They watching us say goodbye, they knew the gravity of that.” 

They did improvise the touching of the foreheads during the death scene.  Jared also came up with the idea to end the episode with the same words they said to each other in the Pilot, as well as the call back to the outfits.  Naturally the shirt that Sam wore back then wasn’t available anymore, so they used what they could.  Jared was going to see by next con if they would be allowed to release the script of the finale.  They both stressed that they have been allowed to add little nuances to their roles all through the series.  Kim Manners stressed that to them early on.  He’s the one that said it was their show and the show was about the relationships, not the monsters of the week.  They could use all those nuances to define Sam and Dean.  

After trying to absorb all that, the next question addressed a long elephant in the room.  It was about Castiel’s confession of love to Dean in “Despair.”  The person asking the question mentioned she was a part of the LGBQTIA community and wondered if Dean knew that Castiel had those feelings for him.  Jensen right away said that Dean didn’t know it until then, but it seems that they have had to address this question before, so both Jared and Jensen had answers about that scene.  

The whole gist is the concept of “love” that was declared.  Love doesn’t necessarily mean sexual.  Jared explained that the brothers loved each other, but it wasn’t incest.  He says ‘I love you’ to his son or ‘love you’ to his friends and the gesture is platonic.  Jensen though really nailed it with this comment:

“The love that Cas had is Heavenly.  He’s an angel, he’s able to love on a level and on a plane that human emotion doesn’t necessarily comprehend.  We might default to making it a romantic or a sexual love the way I kind of interpreted it.  This is the great thing about this show and the relationships with these characters it they are open for interpretation.  If you find identity in character because of whatever reason then fantastic.  If that encourages you to be a better person or to love someone a little harder or forgive someone for something then fantastic.  That’s one of the beautiful things about doing what we do in is we get to encourage people on a variety of levels.  I think Cas’ love was a love that isn’t identified by humans.  It was a love that superseded that.  We tried to find words to describe that and I don’t think there are words.” 

The panel then ended with a big hug and they were on their way. 



I’m not sure if that last topic ended the whole “Destiel is canon” thing or not, but bottom line, they aren’t going to say yes or no.  It’s up to each fan’s interpretation.  

Misha Collins seemed to back that thought in his panel.

That’s a wrap on this latest edition of Supernatural Whenever World News. I’m sure there’s something I missed, or something new might break between now and the next installment. So please, share any news you catch in the comments! Also, if you have some thoughts about what was said about the finale or your “interpretation” of “Despair,” feel free to share here too. All opinions, or interpretations, welcome.

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