The Live-Action POWERPUFF GIRLS Series Has Been Scrapped
The live-action Powerpuff Girls series that’s been in development at Warner Bros. TV over the past few years has been scrapped and is officially dead. TV Line reports, “that the live-action Powerpuff Girls series — which The CW sent back to the studio amid ownership/strategic changes at the netlet — is no longer in development at Warner Bros. TV.”
Other projects that were in development that are not moving forward at The CW include the proposed Arrowverse spinoff Justice U, Archie Comics-inspired Jack Chang, and the female-led Zorro reboot. Those projects were sent back to their respective studios, and they will have to opportunity to continue to develop them and shop them around to other networks.
The Powerpuff Girls series would have caught up with Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, “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?”
The cast included Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Chloe Bennet as Blossom, Descendants‘ Dove Cameron as Bubbles, Broadway vet Yana Perrault as Buttercup, and Scrubs‘ Donald Faison as Professor Utonium, as well as other cast.
A pilot for the series was actually shot, but it didn’t turn out to the studio’s liking so the series was supposed to be reworked. After that, there was radio silence on the series. Former The CW president Mark Pedowitz previously explained in 2021: "The reason you do pilots is because, sometimes things miss, and this was just a miss. 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."
Pedowitz continued: "In this case, the pilot didn't work. 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."
Well, they eventually gave up on it and life goes on. It will just go on without a live-action Powerpuff Girls series.