5 years on from the last Cartoon Network series, and almost 40 years since the original series ended, Warner Bros animation has finally announced development of a new animated ThunderCats movie. The news was revealed at Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Previously, Adam Wingard was attached to direct a separate live-action movie, and recently confirmed the project is still in development, but the animated movie is likely to land sooner.
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Since the original series ended in 1989, there have been two revivals: Cartoon Network’s Thundercats in 2011, which was unceremoniously cancelled after just one season (and whose cancelled LEGO tie-in line became LEGO Legends of Chima), and then ThunderCats Roar, in 2020. Both revivals deviated from the source material, with different results, and the more comedic 2020 show was widely panned (to a degree that felt unfair in hindsight). Wingard promised his live-action remake would explicitly be true to the original, and hopefully, this new animated movie will follow that trend too.
ThunderCats Has Almost Been Remade as a Movie Several Times
There’s currently no new update on the live-action movie, which was described as a “CGI-hybrid” project, but ThunderCats has an interesting history of attempted movie revivals. Ahead of the new animated movie and Wingard’s remake, Jerry O’Flaherty was tapped to direct the first attempt back in 2007 with a script from Paul Sopocy. Ultimately, despite being given a 2010 release date, the project was never given the green light, but ThunderCats fans did get to see leaked test footage showing an adult Lion-O battling Slithe with the Sword of Omens. On reflection, it is perhaps not the worst thing that the project didn’t see the light of day:
An animated movie is the right move for ThunderCats in the current market. Masters of the Universe was backed by a similarly popular 1980s IP, and has only just passed $100 million at the box office, despite a reported production budget of twice that (and that’s without mentioning marketing spend). There is certainly appetite from fans of the original to see a new movie, as proven by the reactions to Wingard’s announced project, but you have to wonder whether the kind of budget needed to make such a high-concept sci-fi would be justified against a potential box office take. It certainly wouldn’t be if ThunderCats performed similarly to Masters of the Universe. And this way, Warner Bros can test the waters with an animated release before weighing up the live-action alternative, assuming that’s now on the backburner.
The key to any ThunderCats revival will be capturing the original audience – which means not messing with the formula that made it so popular – but also balancing enough innovation to broaden the appeal to new audience members. Lots of the analysis around Masters of the Universe suggests the latter was not achieved (though it’s nonsense, because Travis Knight’s excellent movie is transformative and a love letter at the same time, and Amazon’s commitment to a sequel should prove smart when it captures a huge audience on streaming). That’s not a simple ask, but it remains the most important one.
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Image Courtesy of Marvel
