News of a ThunderCats movie first broke in 2007, but, ultimately, the planned remake never happened. Warner Bros. was originally set to adapt the beloved 1980s animated series into a CGI-animated feature, aiming for a 2010 release date. The studio had optioned a script from writer Paul Sopocy and had already, in fact, tapped video game art director Jerry O’Flaherty to direct. Even further, major stars like Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich expressed interest in starring in the remake.
ThunderCats tells the story of cat-like humanoid alien-heroes—with fittingly cat-like names, like Lion-O and Cheetara—who, after the destruction of their home planet Thundera, must flee to another planet called Third Earth. There, the team battles against an evil sorcerer named Mumm-Ra whose goal is to eradicate the Thunderians species. The series is one of many franchises in the 1980s that has undergone numerous reboots and has spawned a line of toys, a series of comic books, and a fervent following. The planned adaptation that was first announced in 2007 would have been an origin story similar to the original pilot, “Exodus”, following Lion-O as he became the leader of the Thundercats and doing battle with Mumm-Ra.
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Despite the franchise’s evident popularity, however, Warner Bros. never officially gave the planned ThunderCats remake the green light. Plans for it were canceled in 2009, despite ThunderCats concept art making it out to the public. Moreover, there was no official word on why the project was shelved. And now that Warner Bros. has, over a decade later, announced that a different ThunderCats remake is actually in the works – this time, with Godzilla vs. Kong director Adam Wingard at the helm – the ultimate reason for the initial project’s cancellation is up for speculation. That being said, when it comes to understanding the possible reasons why the canceled ThunderCats movie never happened, it’s always a safe bet to follow the money and medium.
It is, in short, possible that Warner Bros. didn’t think a CGI-animated feature based on an ’80s franchise about a group of animal-like humanoid heroes was a lucrative investment. After all, in the same year as their ThunderCats announcement, the studio released TMNT (2007), incidentally a CGI-animated feature based on an ’80s franchise about a group of animal-like humanoid heroes. This important to note because, at the end of the day, a studio has to make films that make money. Studio execs would have looked at TMNT’s success (or, more correctly, lack thereof) as a blueprint for ThunderCats, both in terms of production value and critical reception. Previously leaked test footage of ThunderCats, in fact, confirms stylistic similarities to TMNT. As a result, the poor box office performance of TMNT - it grossed only $54 million domestically on a budget of $34 million – could have swayed the studio against the production of the former.
Another possible reason for the cancellation of the remake is the studio’s shift from the big screen to the small one. In 2010, it was announced that Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network were teaming up for an anime-style ThunderCats series, which was planned as an origin story for Lion-O, tracing his journey towards princedom. Coincidentally, the story of Lion-O’s ascension to power echoes that which Sopocy initially drafted for the previously planned movie version. It’s possible that Warner Bros., seeing the risk that a movie production would pose, funneled the ideas of the canceled movie project into the animated series.
Ultimately, the 2011 animated series, too, was canceled after just one season. Nevertheless, ThunderCats clearly remains a passion project for Warner Bros. studio. They’ve now hired the perfect ThunderCats director in Adam Wingard, who counts himself as a vocal fan and wrote a script for it when he was younger. Just as the 2011 animated series served as a possible reincarnation of the canceled movie remake, it’s equally possible that Wingard’s movie, cresting on the distant horizon, could finally be the money-making medium the studio—and fans—are looking for.
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