The OC Creators Reveal Marissa Cooper’s Death Was Driven by Pressure from the Network

The creators of The OC are talking out about their controversial choice to kill off Mischa Barton’s Marissa Cooper.

Barton was written out of the FOX teen cleaning soap at the shut of its third season, ceaselessly altering the sequence and presumably paving the means for its cancellation one season later.

Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage opened as much as Vanity Fair about the choice in an interview selling their new e book, Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral History.

Marissa was killed off when Volchok drove Ryan’s automotive off the highway, resulting in considered one of the defining moments of the sequence.

“It’s something that we regret, and looking back on it, we wish we could have come up with a different solution,” Schwartz says to the outlet. 

“We didn’t see an alternate path at the time, which is why we went down that highway,” he elaborated.

“But clearly in hindsight, there have been a lot of different methods we may have written the character off the present — and given Mischa the break that she wanted and wished — that also would’ve allowed for that character to return.”

The fourth and ultimate season of The OC picked up months later, with the characters making an attempt to select up the items.

Savage revealed to Vanity Fair that there was “tremendous pressure” from the community to amp up the drama on the present, and killing off a sequence common appeared the greatest foot ahead at the time.

“If we wanted a Season 4, we’d have to do something like that,” she added.

Schwartz admitted that the response to the dying was sufficient to allow them to realize it wasn’t the proper name.

“It did not feel like that audience had been served or respected in the way that we always wanted and aimed to,” he shared.

“Immediately, we had regret at that point.”

Barton, for her half, revealed in a 2021 interview with E! Online that she bought the choice of being written out lifeless or alive and that there was a chance she may return in some unspecified time in the future.

“It just felt like it was the best thing for me and my health and just in terms of not really feeling protected by my cast and crew at that point,” she stated of selecting the dying route.

What are your ideas on the creatives regretting the choice?

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