HEROES Ends Early Next Season!! ORIGINS To Air After The Season Finale In April

[Brian Damage]

“Heroes” will not air during May sweeps next year. It will conclude its second season in mid-April, series mastermind Tim Kring said at a Thursday-morning press conference in Hollywood.

The six-episode miniseries spinoff “Heroes: Origins” will air over six consecutive weeks in late April and May - after “Heroes” airs its second-season finale, explained Kring.

Kring also confirmed that “Origins” – which will be set in the "Heroes" universe and deal with a new superpowered individual every week - will be an anthology series, a rarity in modern broadcast network television.

Kring said scripting on "Origins" had not yet begun, and that he did not yet know which, if any, of the "Heroes" regulars would appear in the spinoff.

NBC last month ordered 24 second-season episodes of “Heroes.” Kring said the series would not air a new episode every week this season, but its breaks would be far shorter than the big break that split season one down the middle.

“Heroes” started shooting its second season two days ago, but Kring claimed the presence at the press conference of Santiago Cabrera (Isaac Mendez), Leonard Roberts (D.L. Hawkins), Zachary Quinto (Gabriel “Sylar” Grey), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli), Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman) and Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli) did not mean any of their characters would necessarily survive into season two.

Grunberg did, however, let slip that he was already back at work on the show.

The Thursday press conference was designed to announce a series of late-summer promotional events being billed as “The Heroes World Tour.”

“The Heroes World Tour,” underwritten by Nissan (which also sponsored NBC’s original airing of the series’ pilot and provided a memorable piece of product placement in season one), will take members of the cast to at least seven cities in seven countries – Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Munich, Paris, London and New York – to promote the release of the series’ first season on DVD and HD-DVD. The week-long tour will kick off Aug. 28, the day the season-one sets hit shelves.

During the conference’s Q&A, Kring said Hiro Nakamura will remain in ancient Japan for “a handful of episodes.”

Not everyone has yet shot scenes for season two, but the actors who play the Petrelli brothers sported at the conference different looks than fans will remember from season one.

Ventimiglia’s hair is now extremely short, shorn of Peter’s trademark bangs, and Pasdar has grown a full beard. Hayden Panettiere, who plays cheerleader Claire Bennet, looks skinnier than she did last season.

Kring said every installment after episode nine on the season-one set will feature an audio commentary.

Not every cast member is expected to travel to every city on the whirlwind tour. Fans will be able to follow the tour’s progress via photos, videos and blogs linked to NBC.com.