Supernatural Spin-off The Winchesters Gets A Release Date

The Supernatural spin-off prequel The Winchesters will break the long drought in demon-hunting content and there's finally a release date.

By Nathan Kamal | Published

The Winchesters

The CW’s long-running dark fantasy series Supernatural finished its historic, 15-season run in November of 2020. That is a long period of no Winchester family adventures for the notoriously dedicated Supernatural fan base, but their long drought is nearly over. The CW Network has announced its upcoming fall line-up premiere dates and The Winchesters will finally be debuting. Per Deadline, the Supernatural prequel spin-off is set to premiere on Tuesday, October 11; it seems a little odd that the paranormal-themed franchise would not try to revitalize itself on Halloween, but we can assume that the CW brass knows what they are doing. 

The Winchesters has been described as a prequel following the parents of Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Winchester as young people trying to live their lives while investigating supernatural phenomena and not getting killed. The young version of their father John Winchester will be played by Drake Rodger (of The In Between) and the young version of their mother Mary will be played by Meg Donnelly (of Disney’s Zombies). They will be joined by a supporting cast of Demetria McKinney, Nida Khurshi, Jojo Fleites, and Bianca Kajlich, and the series will take place in 1972, so get ready for some period-appropriate needle drops. 

The spin-off prequel was developed by Supernatural star Jensen Ackles and his wife ​​(Danneel Ackles, who also appeared in the original series); Ackles will also serve as the narrator for The Winchesters, which means that the deceased demon hunter will apparently be commenting on his parents’ love life before he and his brother were born. There was a brief, unpleasant period of controversy in which Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki seemed to have some tension between them, as Ackles apparently did not involve or even mention the development of the series to his longtime co-star and friend. By all reports, the two have patched things up and The Winchesters can premiere without any unpleasant vibes for the Supernatural fan base. 

Aside from The Winchesters, both Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are keeping plenty busy. Jensen Ackles is currently starring in the hit Amazon Prime Video series The Boys as Soldier Boy, a darkly satirical take on Captain America, but with a lot more cursing, jingoism, and senseless, gratuitous violence. The Boys has swiftly become one of the most popular superhero series currently streaming, which makes it a pretty big get for Ackles. Reportedly, Supernatural creator and current The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke also wanted to include Jared Padalecki in the season, but other commitments got in the way. 


Specifically, Jared Padalecki has been starring in (and executive producing) the CW reboot Walker, which sees the Supernatural star step into the rugged cowboy boots of Chuck Norris. While there appear to be no current plans for Padalecki to appear on The Winchesters, it would surprise absolutely no one (and delight many fans) if he did show up on the spin-off in some capacity. Perhaps we will get Sam butting into Dean’s narration of The Winchesters at some point, but we will have to wait till October to find out.