There was talk last year, and even some announced directors for a spin-off prequel series called “Heroes: Origins”. NBC has now confirmed its death. From SciFi Wire:

“We were taxing our creative team to do too much around that,” Silverman said. “We wanted 35 Heroes [episodes] and 12 Heroes: Origins, each of which was supposed to be a mini-movie and backdoor pilot. We reached far and challenged our people, and we decided it was better to focus on keeping the Heroes mothership as strong as possible.”

As much as I wanted to see these, I’m glad they’ve been cancelled. “Heroes” got lost in season 2, and they really need to concentrate on brining it back. I imaging splitting ideas between two distinct series would tax the already struggling plots.

Maybe they’ll revisit this concept for season 4.