Pink Panther Reboot in the Works From Sonic the Hedgehog Director

After successfully bringing Sonic the Hedgehog to life last year, director Jeff Fowler is aiming to take another animated character on a big-screen adventure. MGM is once again looking to revive the Pink Panther franchise and it has tapped Fowler to lead the charge. The filmmaker will be teamed up with screenwriter Chris Bremner, who recently wrote the acclaimed Bay Boys threequel, Bad Boys for Life. It looks like the Pink Panther is finally ready to return once more.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, who first broke the news, the new Pink Panther movie will follow the style of Sonic the Hedgehog and combine animation and live-action filmmaking. The actual Pink Panther character will be an animated character living in the real world, and it’s likely that he’ll be a 3-D character, rather than the classically-animated feline.

The Rideback production company will be putting the project together, led by producers Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich. The duo recently found success in turning an animated classic into a live-action hit, overseeing the Will Smith-starring Aladdin remake for Walt Disney Studios. Also producing are Lawrence Mirisch and beloved actress Julie Andrews. This is significant because Andrews’ late husband, Blake Edwards, wrote and directed the majority of the Peter Sellers Pink Panther films, in which Sellers played Inspector Jacques Clouseau.

While the Sellers/Edwards era Pink Panther movies, as well as the 2009 Steve Martin reboot, focused on human characters, it appears this project will merge the story of the Inspector with an actual Pink Panther. The movies have always been about Clouseau, with the name coming from the Pink Panther diamond at the center of one of his cases. An animated Pink Panther appeared in the opening credits of the film, and turned out to be so popular that he was given his own spinoff TV franchise.

In this new reboot, both the human and animated elements of the story will be present. After a traumatic event, the inspector at the center of this new version starts seeing an imaginary Pink Panther, who helps him solve his various cases.

What do you think about this new Pink Panther reboot idea? Are you looking forward to seeing it when it arrives? Let us know in the comments!