Is nothing sacred anymore?
Most fans of the Powerpuff Girls are of the opinion that Chumptoon Network's 2016 relaunch, which allowed the trio to age ever so slightly, moving them from kindergarten to about 1st or 2nd grade, didn't meet expectations.
Apparently, Oscar-winning actress-producer Diablo Cody ("Juno") is a fan, and had a vision of rebooting Craig McCracken's super team again, this time as, according to Variety, "disillusioned twenty-somethings who lost their childhood due to crime fighting".
Cody teamed with---who else?---Greg Berlanti to make a successful pitch to the CW for a live-action Powerpuff Girls series, assuming it gets past the pilot stage.
But here's the problem. How do you sell the viewers on a grown-up version of the popular 90's team of lab-created siblings when neither McCracken nor the creative personnel behind the 2016 series ever considered a fantasy plot where the girls actually grew up?
That's the challenge facing Cody, Berlanti, and company. A hour-long series just isn't going to work, largely because, admittedly, the Girls were not meant to be taken seriously in the first place, created as a parody of the superhero genre 25 years ago.
I honestly cannot see this happening, but in an era where Hollywood is creatively bankrupt, and studios have conditioned themselves to believe that pre-sold product, comic books aside, would be an easier sell to today's viewers, this is likely going to be another Katy Keene, a good idea that went nowhere.
Stay tuned.
But here's the problem. How do you sell the viewers on a grown-up version of the popular 90's team of lab-created siblings when neither McCracken nor the creative personnel behind the 2016 series ever considered a fantasy plot where the girls actually grew up?
That's the challenge facing Cody, Berlanti, and company. A hour-long series just isn't going to work, largely because, admittedly, the Girls were not meant to be taken seriously in the first place, created as a parody of the superhero genre 25 years ago.
I honestly cannot see this happening, but in an era where Hollywood is creatively bankrupt, and studios have conditioned themselves to believe that pre-sold product, comic books aside, would be an easier sell to today's viewers, this is likely going to be another Katy Keene, a good idea that went nowhere.
Stay tuned.
21 comments:
At the offices: You know, that Umbrella Academy is popular. Do we have any characters we can use for something like that?
You think that's why they're doing this? Because of the Umbrella Academy and its accompanying Netflix series?
If that's so, then the Powerpuffs are the wrong choice.
Yeah, I gotta say, that sounds awful. If this were being planned as super hero spoof with the Girls now in the 20s, it might, repeat *might* work, although that doesn't sound great either. Powerpuff Girls Z (the PPG anime) didn't work. The 2016 PPG reboot didn't work, and now there's this thing, which sounds like a fake TV show that some hack writer is trying to pitch to a network on the actual TV show.
Honestly, I think that the Powerpuff Girls should just stay in the 1990s where it belongs.
The problem is that a lot of the CW-ites who grew up watching The Powerpuff Girls did so under the mistaken belief that the original was meant to be a legit action show; many of these kids didn't seem to realize that PPG was intended to be a PARODY of superhero cartoons, so trying to stretch it out into a gritty, edgy YA drama ain't gonna work. It would be like somebody trying to make a super-serious, no-nonsense remake of The Robonic Stooges.
I wouldn't call Diablo Cody a hack. She won her Oscar for her screenplay for "Juno", but has been doing mostly TV producing in recent years.
At least we know PPG was meant to be a parody in the first place. I just don't see Cody's treatment going very far, even with Berlanti's backing.
FTR, Diablo Cody wasn't the hack in the scenario that I described; I was making the point that this YA PPG sounds like a fake TV show within an actual TV show that's intentionally goofy sounding.
Show-within-a-show? Um, ok.
I'm surprised that Craig McCracken and Lauren Faust aren't working on it.
I'm not. Craig McCracken stopped caring about The Powepuff Girls the second Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends popped into his head; McCracken moved on from PPG years ago. He didn't even want CN to make the 2016 reboot, so why would he want to work on this thing?
Hobbyfan: I think Goldstar means this sounds more like a joke idea that somebody would write in as a running gag on a show lampooning television like, say, Entourage, than a legit production that an actual studio would spend money and effort on.
As of now, there's no guarantee it'll get to series. Berlanti has way too much going on now, anyway.
@Silverstar YA?
Young Adult, Steven.
And, yeah, there was a fantasy sequence in the original series where the girls dreamed of growing to at least teenagers. I just don't have high hopes for a live-action PPG.
Hopefully, it won't end up like the notorious 2016 reboot. That reboot was pointless and had no reason to exist. If you asked me, I would have [adult swim] Toonami reboot this show since this show was popular to resonate with adults like me. I was 4 when this show premiered back in 1998. Here we are in 2020 where I am now 26. I was the correct target demographic for this show. You and the twins on the other hand were too old for this program. And while I do admit that was intended to be a parody of the superhero genre, the show still had good action. Do you even know why it's The Powerpuff Girls? Because it was also an ACTION cartoon, which is why this show became popular with males in the first place. Not to mention, this show was not afraid to go dark and serious. Don't believe me? Then please watch this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP8YKxGStRs The show also had good humor and clever writing for a kids show. So hopefully, the CW PPG might not suck eggs like the 2016 PPG did.
That's why it's called action-comedy.
Exactly
The original even had a few characters being killed off too.
How would a live action of this show even work in the first place? Most live action adaptations of cartoons don't usually work.
The last time we got a live action adaptation of a Cartoon Network property was back when they made two poorly made live action made for tv Ben 10 movies back in the late 2000's during the infamous live action era of the late 2000's and the early 2010's. Back when that sadistic satanist Stuart Snyder was taking over the channel.
That was because Stupid Snyder wanted to shove Ben 10 down the viewers' throats any way he could.
That's because Ben 10 was a cash cow for CN back in the day.
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