Warren Leight is leaving Law & Order: SVU after serving as an executive producer and showrunner on the venerable NBC crime drama for the past three seasons. It was his second stint at the helm of the Wolf Entertainment series.
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Leight announced his exit on Twitter Tuesday night, after wrapping production on the current 23rd season of SVU.
“The last two years of show running during a pandemic have been arduous, and I’ve decided to take a break,” Leight wrote on Twitter in a lengthy thread. (You can read it below)
Leight originally joined SVU at the beginning of Season 13 when the drama was at crossroads, having just lost its co-lead Christopher Meloni. He shifted the attention to Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson and successfully rebuilt the show around her, giving it a new life. Leight rejoined SVU in 2019 for the show’s record-breaking 21st season.
The 23rd season of SVU premiered in September 2021 and the show hit its 500th episode during the season. It saw the return of former Detective Nick Amaro, played by Danny Pino, and former SVU Captain Don Cragen, played by Dann Florek.
Jamie Gray Hyder’s Kat Tamin and Demore Barnes’ Deputy Chief Christian Garland also departed this season.
The show, which is produced by Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, stars Hargitay, Kelli Giddish, Ice-T and Peter Scanavino.
Season 23 picked up mere hours after last season’s finale, where Catalina Machado (Zabryna Guevara) was arrested for trafficking single mothers living in shelters in a complex housing-for-sex scheme. She now wants to flip on her superiors in exchange for a deal with the feds, and names a powerful congressman as the big fish. It’s a make-or-break case for the NYPD and puts enormous pressure on the entire SVU squad to get a conviction.
SVU is TV’s longest-running primetime live-action series. Dick Wolf is creator and executive producer. Leight, Hargitay, Julie Martin, Norberto Barba, Arthur Forney and Peter Jankowski are executive producers.
The final day of shooting is always bittersweet. Today was a little more than that. As some of you have already figured out, I am stepping down at the end of #SVU23. The last two years of show running during a pandemic have been arduous, and I’ve decided to take a break. /1
— Warren Leight (@warrenleightTV) May 4, 2022
