Powerpuff

Note: This article is about a Powerpuff Girls reiteration that is no longer in development.

Powerpuff is a scrapped reiteration of The Powerpuff Girls franchise. It was supposed to be a live-action TV show reboot of The Powerpuff Girls that would air on The CW and it be geared toward more mature audiences, unlike the previous animated shows in the franchise.

Biography[]

On August 24, 2020, two articles on Variety and Deadline said The CW would be developing a live-action TV series of the Cartoon Network original 1998 TV series, The Powerpuff Girls. The live-action versions of Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup would be depicted as "disillusioned twenty-somethings" resentful at losing their childhood to fighting crime and faced with the choice of reuniting when the world needs them more than ever before. The show was to be produced by such people as Heather Ringer, Diablo Cody, Greg Berate, Sarah Schechter, and David Madden.

Eventually, on February 9, 2021, the CW decided to go forward with ordering a pilot, and on March 31, 2021, it was announced that the title of the show would be simply Powerpuff. Production on the pilot began on April 7, 2021. However, it ran into a couple of snags much later on. First, on May 24, 2021, it was announced that the pilot would be reworked, as the staff believed the first take of it was too "campy". ^[1] Then, on August 11, 2021, Variety announced that Chloe Bennet, the actress who was supposed to star as Blossom, has exited the project.^[2] After that, little to no other information about the series was given, leaving the fate of the series to be unknown for a while.

Ultimately, on May 18, 2023, it was confirmed that the series was no longer in development.

Cast[]

Lead Actors[]

Supporting Actors[]

Donald Faison as Professor Drake Utonium
Nicholas Podany as Joseph "Jojo" Mondel Jr.
Robyn Lively as Sara Bellum
Tom Kenny as Narrator

Producers[]

Heather Regnier (executive producer)
Diablo Cody (executive producer)
Greg Berlanti (executive producer)
Sarah Schechter (executive producer)
David Madden (executive producer)

Plot[]

The girls are now in their 20s, frustrated by the amount of responsibility they had as children. But, they’ll soon need to come back together to save the world once again. Though Blossom was a spunky, conscientious, Little-Miss-Perfect child who holds several advanced degrees, Blossom's repressed kiddie-superhero trauma has left her feeling anxious and reclusive, and she aims to become a leader again — this time on her own terms," reads the character description. Bubbles still sparkles as an adult, but her charming exterior belies an unexpected toughness and wit. She's initially more interested in recapturing her fame than saving the world, but she just might surprise us and herself. Buttercup was the rebellious badass of the Powerpuff Girls in its heyday. More sensitive than her tough exterior suggests, Buttercup has spent her adulthood trying to shed her Powerpuff Girl identity and live an anonymous life.

Pre-Airing Reception[]

Ever since the very first live-action show announcement, there has been mixed reception by fans, though it was more on the negative side. The most prominent factors for this were that the show will be live-action instead of animation; that the Girls would be twenty-somethings; the show's premise, which many fans disagreed with; and that the 2016 reboot of PPG, the previous iteration of PPG, did poorly compared to the original 1998 show. This negative reception worsened after the script for the initial take of the pilot was leaked. Probably (but not certainly) because of these factors, production on the show eventually ceased.

Episodes[]

Pilot

Trivia[]

This TV series was going to be the fourth Powerpuff Girls TV Show, following the original 1998 series, The Powerpuff Girls; the 2006 Japanese Anime spin-off, Powerpuff Girls Z; and the 2016 reboot of the 1998 series, also titled The Powerpuff Girls.
Any previous media from any version of the series (1992, 1995, 1996, 1998, Z, 2014, 2016) wouldn't have been canon to the live action series, as it wouldn’t be part of the same franchise and would have been in its own franchise instead.
- Although the Pilot (Powerpuff) made allusions to the girls having an cartoon based on them which fans deluded was 1998 version.