The CW Officially Axes Live-Action ‘The Powerpuff Girls’ Reboot
And thus the live-action Powerpuff Girls were cancelled!
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As revealed by the network exclusively to TVLine on May 18th, The CW will no longer be moving forward with a number of its live-action production plans.
These cut series include Justice U, an Arrowverse spin-off which would have followed David Ramsey’s John Diggle as he trained and assembled a team of young metahumans to go undercover at a local university, a solo outing centered on the relatively new Archie Comics cast member Jake Chang, the previously-announced Robert Rodriguez-helmed, female-led Zorro, and their now-infamous live-action The Powerpuff Girls reboot, Powerpuff.
“We’ve already given those back to the studios,” The CW’s President of Entertainment Brad Shwartz told the outlet. “so they’re free to develop those and sell them anywhere.”
Of course, news of Powerpuff’s cancellation comes as little surprise given the live-action series’ absolutely tumultuous production history.
First announced in 2021 and originally set to star Chloe Bennett (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D) as Blossom, Dove Cameron (Disney’s Descendants) as Bubbles, newcomer Yana Perault as Buttercup, and Donald Faison (Scrubs) as Professor Utonium, Powerpuff would have attempted to subvert audience expectations by reimagining the crime-fighting trio as angry, resentful and sex-obsessed 20-year-olds who spent their childhoods being pushed into the superhero spotlight by their abusive, fame-obsessed father.
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Notably, the Diablo Cody-penned series had at one point entered production, with multiple photos from the set – and even a supposed script – leaking online during its filming.
But in the wake of these leaks, the network opted to take the series back to the drawing board after finding – a decision allegedly made, according to Cameron herself, not because of the massively negative audience reception the aforementioned leaked materials garnered online, but because the production team felt that the series’ then-current direction was “too campy”.
However, thanks to “scheduling conflicts’ caused by this delay in the series’ production – and perhaps, from a purely speculative angle, because she realized just how terrible the project was shaping up to be – Bennet chose to exit her role as the team’s red-dressed leader.
“Warner Bros. Television wanted to extend Bennet’s option as they reworked the pilot, but scheduling conflicts forced her to exit instead,” an insider source told Variety.
As of writing, no other network has publicly expressed interest in picking up Powerpuff.
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