The Powerpuff Girls Becomes A Live-Action Series
The classic Cartoon Network series The Powerpuff Girls is being developed for The CW as a live-action series. It's a reboot, but a live-action reboot.
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The classic Cartoon Network series The Powerpuff Girls is being developed for The CW as a live-action series. It’s a reboot, sort of (more on that in a minute), but a live-action reboot. That means you’ll get to see the girls as real people for the very first time.
This new live-action version of The Powerpuff Girls is being brought to the CW in part by Greg Berlanti through his Berlanti Productions, the same group that brought Riverdale to the CW. Along with Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and David Madden will also executive produce. Leading the way with this new vision are writers/executive producers Heather Regnier and Diablo Cody. Regnier currently has an overall deal with Warner Bros., who are also producing this project and her past credits include Sleepy Hollow, iZombie, Falling Skies, SMILF, and the recent revival of Veronica Mars.
If Diablo Cody’s name looks familiar on the list of people making The Powerpuff Girls, it should. She won the 2008 Academy Award for best original screenplay for the comedy Juno. Her other films include Young Adult and Jennifer’s Body starring Megan Fox. Cody was also the co-creator of One Mississippi and United States of Tara.
THE LIVE-ACTION POWERPUFF GIRLS PLOT
With all that firepower and knowing what Berlanti likes to produce as well as what Cody likes to write, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you won’t see this version of the Powerpuff Girls as kindergarten-aged girls. No, they will most definitely be twentysomethings and stop us if you’ve heard this premise before.
This version of The Powerpuff Girls will make them disillusioned twentysomethings. Their disillusionment comes from the resentment they carry around for having lost their childhood to crimefighting. But now that Townsville, USA is under a threat, will the girls find their “mojo” and get back together for the greater good? There will sure to be many angst-ridden decisions to be made.
Basically the live-action Powerpuff Girls is going to be the story of what the Powerpuff Girls would be like after they grow up and make it into high school. Because on The CW everything takes place in high school.
THE CHARACTERS
We know Bubbles, Blossom, and Buttercup will headline the series. By the way, will those be the names they keep as venture into their twentysomethings? Anyway, we know they will be present, but will Bliss join their ranks? Who is Bliss, you ask? Well, she was another creation of Professor Utonium and an ex-friend of Mojo Jojo and she came to the series during the 2016 reboot. Bliss’s character angers easily and is quite unstable and when she has her tantrums, bad things happen. One classic tantrum caused an explosion and she was lost forever, or so the Professor thought.
Her addition to the “team” created some firsts for the series. She became the first official fourth member, she was also the first teenager of the group, and she was the first Powerpuff girl of color. How the series creators will handle this addition, if Bliss is part of the cast, will no doubt be seamless and probably not even noteworthy. What probably will be noteworthy, at least to those rabid Powerpuff Girls fans, is how they introduce their beloved characters. For that matter, just what is Mojo Jojo going to be? We’ll let you know as soon as we know.
THE ANIMATED POWERPUFF GIRLS
The original animated superhero series The Powerpuff Girls was created by Craig McCracken (who also created Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Wander Over Yonder, and Kid Cosmic) for the Cartoon Network in 1998. Before his Powerpuff Girls were brought to life, McCracken was the art director and storyboard artist on 2 Stupid Dogs, the writer, director, and art director on What a Cartoon, and held the same titles on Dexter’s Laboratory until The Powerpuff Girls took off.
The Powerpuff Girls tells the story of Bubbles, Blossom, and Buttercup; three kindergarten-aged girls who just so happen to have superpowers. On top of defending their hometown of Townsville, USA from villains and various giant monsters, the girls also dealt with the regular issues that face young kids like security blankets, bedwetting, loose teeth, and even sibling rivalries.
The girls were created by Professor Utonium. He was experimenting, trying to create the perfect girl with “sugar and spice and everything nice” but during the experiment he accidentally spilled Chemical X, a mysterious substance, into the mixture, thus creating the Powerpuff Girls. With that creation, they also found they had superpowers such as super strength, superhuman speed and senses, the ability to fly, x-ray and red heat vision, invisibility, energy projection, and the control over fire and lightning.
While the Powerpuff Girls had great superpowers, they still had their share of villains who would continue to try to best them. Their archenemy is Mojo Jojo a mad scientist chimpanzee who is extremely intelligent and speaks with a Japanese accent. Before he became their enemy, Mojo Jojo was the lab assistant to Professor Utonium. They have other enemies. HIM, Fuzzy Lumpkins, Princess Morbucks, The Ganggreen Gang, The Amoeba Boys, Sedusa, and The Rowdyruff Boys are included in that mix. All of these enemies made their triumphant return when the rebooted animated series premiered in 2016 on the Cartoon Network.
PREVIOUS CW LIVE-ACTION REBOOTS
The CW has been down this road before. For those of you who watch the CWs Riverdale you also know that the series is based on the Archie comics franchise that featured Archie, Veronica, Betty, and Jughead. And while the series somewhat resembled the Archie comics at first, it has taken a turn toward the dark and mysterious, unlike the lighthearted comic. You don’t think the CW would do the same thing with a live-action version of The Powerpuff Girls, do you? Think again.
