The CW's Live-Action Powerpuff Girls Reportedly Still in Development
Out of all of the projects that have been in the works at The CW over the years, none have had buzz quite like Powerpuff. The project, which would serve as a live-action adaptation of the beloved Cartoon Network animated series The Powerpuff Girls, has undergone some specific developments in the past few years, after its originally-filmed pilot episode was deemed "a little too campy." While updates around Powerpuff have been scarce as of late, reports have indicated that the show is still in development at The CW — something that was recently corroborated by TVLine. In the outlet's reporting about new Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends animated series being in the works, they confirm that Powerpuff remains "in active development."
"The reason you do pilots is because, sometimes things miss, and this was just a miss," The CW president Mark Pedowitz previously said of the series. "We believe in the cast completely. We believe in Diablo [Cody] and Heather [Regnier], the writers. We believe in the auspices of Greg Berlanti and Warner [Bros. TV] studios."
"In this case, the pilot didn't work," Pedowitz continued. "But because we see there's enough elements in there, we wanted to give it another shot. So that's why we didn't want to go forward with what we had. Tonally, it might've felt a little too campy. It didn't feel as rooted in reality as it might've felt. But again, you learn things when you test things out. And so in this case, we felt, let's take a step back and go back to the drawing board."
Based on the original Cartoon Network animated series and characters created by Craig McCracken, Powerpuff would catch up with Blossom, Bubbles (Descendants' Dove Cameron), and Buttercup (Broadway actress Yana Perrault), who used to be America's pint-sized superheroes but now are disillusioned twentysomethings who resent having lost their childhood to crime-fighting. Will they agree to reunite now that the world needs them more than ever?
"I can't tell you that!" Cameron admitted to ComicBook.com in an interview last year. "We are going back, we are reshooting, we are taking a slightly different approach tonally. It's one of those things where you don't want to get it wrong and it's very easy to get it wrong. In the same way that everyone from an outsider's perspective is like, 'How are you gonna do that?' We're figuring that out. We want to get it right for us and for the fans. We really loved what we got but we also just think we could it a little bit closer to what we have in mind. I'll keep you posted."
Heather Regnier (Veronica Mars) and Diablo Cody (Juno) are writing the script for the Powerpuff pilot and Maggie Kiley is set to direct. Regnier, Cody, and Kiley will all executive produce alongside Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and David Madden. The pilot also starred Donald Faison as Professor Drake Utonium, Robin Lively as Sarah Bellum, Nicholas Podany as Mojo Jojo Jr, and Chloe Bennet as Blossom, but she departed from the role shortly after.
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