Dynasty, the CW’s reboot of the beloved ABC sudser from the ’80s, came to an end Friday night after five seasons. Here, showrunner Josh Reims talks about what he really wanted to do in the last episode, and how odd it was that ratings for the sudser were never really discussed.

DEADLINE: Did you have enough time to plan for a series finale? 

JOSH REIMS We actually planned a series finale and a season finale, just in case. We did twice the work, basically.

Did you know you wanted to end with the wedding?

REIMS That came up near the end. For some reason we kept ending seasons with weddings and we thought it would be fun to do it again. We figured Culhane (Robert C. Riley) and Nina (Felisha Terrell) were the best couple to do it, and we liked the idea of playing around and having viewers think it was Sam (Rafael de la Fuente) and Steven (James Mackay), at first.

Wait, how many seasons did you end with the wedding?

REIMS I think there were like three and one in the middle. So we had a lot of weddings.

There were initially calls by fans to shop the show elsewhere. Was that ever a real possibility?

REIMS Uh, no. As far as I know, this was the final goodbye to Dynasty, which is why we gave everybody happy endings they deserved.

Richard Alan Shapiro and Esther Shapiro, who created the original Dynasty, were attached from the beginning. How involved were they over the course of the show?

REIMS I took over running the show in season three and sat down, I think twice, with Esther Shapiro. I had lunch with her a couple of times and we talked about the show and she gave me her thoughts. She was very complimentary and very much like, you know? Do what you think is best. I’m just gonna tell you what I think and you go with that. And then once COVID hit, that was the end of our lunches. We didn’t really communicate much after that. We looked at it like, let’s do our own thing. And then, through the seasons we looked for spots where we could honor the previous series. Like this season, we did a whole Cristal doppelgänger story, which was literally ripped off from the original. So we looked for places to honor the original, but still did our own thing.

Looking back over the last five seasons, what storyline are you most proud of?

REIMS The doppelgänger story! I had resisted doing it for a while, and then for some reason this season I was like, yeah, let’s do it. It turned out to be really fun. I liked doing the episodes where we tried different things, like where Liz [Elizabeth Gillies] could sing, because she loved to do that. There weren’t a lot of limits on what we could do. I could say, ‘I wanna do a noir episode’ and they would say, ‘sure, go ahead.’ I took advantage of that.

REIMS In the finale, Steven returned. There was a lot of discussion in the room whether Steven should kill Adam (Sam Underwood) or let him go. I wanted him to kill him, but it felt not quite right with the tone of the show. Deep down, I think a lot of the writers thought like he deserved to be killed and we wanted to see Steven get his revenge. (Among other dastardly deeds, Adam drugged Steven and had him committed to an asylum). I wouldn’t do it differently, but that was definitely something that we considered.

Ratings-wise, this show didn’t do so well for the CW. But Netflix really made a difference for the series. What was that like for you?

REIMS It’s funny because it’s the first show I’ve ever been on or where there was literally no discussion about the ratings ever, which was great. In season two, we shot in Paris and some of the actors came back and said it was crazy because people showed up to the set and recognized them on the streets. It was then that we realized that internationally, there’s a crazy fan base. So when the Netflix listings came out and showed which countries we were number one in, we realized, ‘oh, this is much bigger than just the CW,’ which was good.

Looking back, were there a lot of marketing dollars spent on spreading the word about Dynasty? Or do you think it mattered?

REIMS I don’t think it mattered. I think people were just waiting for it to drop on Netflix. Online, people were asking when’s the show starting on Netflix. So it felt like by season three, at least there was already a built-in audience.

Reboots are so hard. Would you ever do this again?

REIMS I would totally do it again. This was easier to do because of the fact we didn’t feel beholden to the original. If we had to be more strict to what originally happened, it may not have been as fun and as easy. It worked out for the best.

So does that mean you’re going to reboot The Colbys now?

REIM Exactly. Or Falcon Crest.

Keanu Reeves returning to the Constantine franchise, as revealed by Deadline earlier this afternoon, has thrown up some dust in the TV business.

HBO Max has passed on the J.J. Abrams-exec produced television series version of Constantine, which was being written by British writer Guy Bolton, and a series based on DC Comics’ Madame X with Angela Robinson.

Both were in development at the streamer and came from Abrams’ Bad Robot in association with Warner Bros. Television.

The fact that Warner Bros. is developing another installment of Constantine on the film side with Reeves attached to return with Francis Lawrence directing and Akiva Goldsman writing, didn’t help its small-screen sibling series’ chances.

However, the series, which was a darker reboot of the DC character, inspired by the character’s appearance in the Hellblazer comics, that takes place in contemporary London, had been in development for over two years, well before HBO Max even launched and long before David Zaslav took over the studio.

It was time for HBO Max, which already has seven live-action DC series on air, to move on.

This was similar for the version of Madame X that Robinson was exec producing and set to serve as showrunner.

Both projects will be shopped by the studio to other platforms next week, Deadline understands. Sources said that both Warner Bros. Television and Bad Robot remain high on them and expect them to find new homes.

Given that the studio has had success with the likes of The Sandman at Netflix and Lucifer at Fox/Netflix, means there is a chance.

On Constantine, Bolton is set as exec producer and showrunner and four scripts have been written. On Madame X, a pilot script has been written. Abrams and Rachel Rusch Rich are executive producers for Bad Robot on both projects.

Major Hollywood actors including Leonardo DiCaprio will “probably” become part of Squid Game if there is a third season, according to the show’s Emmy-winning director Hwang Dong-hyuk, who said Netflix has upped budget for season two and he has now settled on the games.

The director of Netflix’s most-watched show of all time was taking part in a special Squid Game Emmy-winning press conference following the Korean show’s record haul of six wins and Hwang said DiCaprio has “said he is a big fan many times.”

“Maybe if time allows and if chances allow we should ask him to join the game,” said Hwang. “We have already joked about that.”

For season two, Hwang admitted Hollywood actors are “not in my plan” as the series will again be set in Korea, but if a third season is greenlit he said this will “probably change,” conceding that many other Hollywood stars have said they loved the show.

Netflix has upped the budget for season two, revealed Hwang, who is in the midst of writing. It will enter production next year and air in 2024.

Hwang has now decided which games will feature in the second season but wouldn’t give any away, and he urged the media to keep the games to themselves if they find out.

“I beg you not to write articles about the games because the audience needs to feel the suspense and thrill of what’s coming next,” he said, before jokingly adding: “If I get too drunk and babble, I ask you to suffocate me to stop me from giving spoilers.”

Hwang said he is “feeling the pressure” after season one’s stellar performance but this is acting as “motivation.”

Reflecting on the success of Korean TV, movies and music more generally, he said the nation has always “had an eye on the global market when creating things and that has blossomed into something wonderful.”

Lead actor Lee Jung-jae, who also won an Emmy, beamed into the conference via video link from TIFF where he is promoting upcoming movie Hunt.

Lee said he is “striving hard to make more exciting content” and that the second and, hopefully, third season of Squid Game will “give more opportunities to remarkable filmmakers and actresses.”