Cast exits are a common occurrence in the television industry: performers leave due to creative differences (AMC’s The Walking Dead has killed off many actors), or because the show’s talent is dissatisfied and wants to move on (Fox’s Sleepy Hollow). However, ABC’s Castle lost lead actress Stana Katic and fellow original star Tamala Jones due to budgetary constraints. THR has learned that the network considered writing out Katic’s Kate Beckett at the end of season seven, but declined when it realized the backlash that resulted from the shocking death of Patrick Dempsey’s Derek Shepherd from Grey’s Anatomy with one year left on his contract.Now, as ABC looks ahead to its 2016–17 schedule under new entertainment president Channing Dungey, the network and producers ABC Studios are trying to save money on the seasoned procedural. This entails calling it quits on Jones and Katic, whose one-year contract expired this season. Reducing the licensing fee for the program would help Castle become more appealing for a 13-episode short-order season nine. At the moment, the network and studio are negotiating a new one-year contract with Nathan Fillion, who plays the title character Richard Castle.
In the grand scheme of things, Castle’s renewal has become greater significance as ABC Television Group president Ben Sherwood seeks more procedural content rather than the soap operas that were Paul Lee’s top priorities, like Nashville and Scandal. Only a small percentage of the network’s pilot offerings—all conceived by Dungey but picked up by Lee—are procedural in nature, with the majority falling into ABC’s soap opera genre. Additionally, ABC would be better off renewing Castle, a program it owns and has a devoted fan base, than incurring the expenses of starting a new drama.
If Castle is renewed for a ninth season sans Katic, the show could be able to shift its emphasis from the serialized relationship between Castle and Beckett to a case-of-the-week structure. That would be different from the original plans for the program at the beginning of season eight, when Terence Paul Winter and Alexi Hawley, the new showrunners, wanted to create a more character-driven drama instead of a procedural.
