On May 1, 2019, Hulu ordered Marvel's Helstrom to series, based on the Marvel Comics characters Daimon and Satana Hellstrom; their names are Daimon and Ana Helstrom in the series. Paul Zbyszewski, who previously served as an executive producer on Marvel's ABC series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., was set as showrunner and executive producer of Helstrom alongside Marvel Television head Jeph Loeb and Karim Zreik. Marvel Television and ABC Signature Studios were set to co-produce Helstrom. Zbyszewski said the series would be adding "scares" to the Marvel formula of "heart, humor, and action", and that he would use the Helstroms' story to "dissect some of our deepest fears", with Loeb saying the series is moving into a new, "chilling" corner of the Marvel Universe. The first season consists of 10 episodes. In December 2019, Marvel Television was folded into Marvel Studios, with some executives from Marvel Television moving over to Marvel Studios to oversee the completion of production on Helstrom, including Zreik. In April 2020, Marvel terminated Zbyszewski's overall deal with them, in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Zbyszewski continued post-production work on the series. By July, the series was no longer officially titled Marvel's Helstrom, with Disney changing the title to simply Helstrom in order to distance the Marvel brand from the series' horror-based content, not wanting viewers to "stumble upon the show while looking for something in the tone" of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films.
Casting
Marvel announced the series' cast at the start of production in October 2019: Tom Austen and Sydney Lemmon star as Daimon and Ana Helstrom, with Elizabeth Marvel as their mother Victoria, Robert Wisdom as Caretaker, June Carryl as Dr. Louise Hastings, Ariana Guerra as Gabriella Rosetti, and Alain Uy as Chris Yen. In November 2019, Daniel Cudmore and David Meunier were cast in the recurring roles as Nurse Keith Spivey and Finn Miller, respectively.
Filming
Production on the series began on October 7, 2019, in Vancouver, under the working titleOmens. Filming wrapped on March 14, 2020.
Hulu and Marvel announced both Helstrom and a Ghost Rider series in May 2019, referring to them as the cornerstone of the "Spirits of Vengeance" and intending on them being interconnected in a similar fashion to Marvel's Netflix television series. Marvel revealed that the two series would exist within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but would not crossover with the films or other television series of the franchise. In August, Loeb revealed that the fear-based series at Hulu were being collectively referred to as Adventure into Fear. Hulu was no longer moving forward with Ghost Rider by the end of September, but other Adventure into Fear series were still planned. Development on any further series was cancelled in December 2019 when Marvel Television was shut down.
Marketing
Zbyszewski and the series' cast took part in a panel for the series during the virtual convention Comic-Con@Home in July 2020, where the first teaser for the series was released.
Release
Helstrom is scheduled to debut on Hulu on October 16, 2020, as part of Hulu's "Huluween" programming block, and run for 10 episodes.
