Nathan Fillion himself just revealed during Awesome Con that an animated continuation of Joss Whedon’s 2002 one-and-done (plus a movie) TV series Firefly is officially entering “advanced production,” and everyone is set to return for the new series. That is, everyone except Whedon.
Fillion announced the news during a live recording of the Once We Were Spacemen podcast at Awesome Con, via a report from Deadline. Every member of the original main cast was present for the recording, except Adam Baldwin and, of course, Ron Glass (who passed in 2016), which probably implies that they’ll be coming back for the animated follow-up.
However, Fillion also confirmed that Baldwin will be lending his voice to the new series, but that Whedon merely gave the show his “blessing” and won’t actually be involved in its production. The reason behind Whedon’s omission is pretty obvious, considering he was accused of multiple accounts of sexual harassment (which were corroborated by basically every former Buffy cast member) back in 2021. In light of that, it’s strange that they’re bringing back the pro-MAGA and GamerGate supporter Adam Baldwin, but I guess that’s not enough to consider someone persona non grata in Hollywood these days.
The animated Firefly show is being developed through Fillion’s production house Collision33, and will be produced in partnership with the Firefly rights holders 20th Television Animation. According to Deadline, scripts for the series have been finalised, and the “fully assembled package” will be shopped around to buyers in the very near future.
“The dedication of Firefly fans has kept this 25-year-old show relevant. Clearly, the return of Firefly is something the fans want. More importantly, it’s something they deserve,” Fillion told Deadline following the announcement. However, considering that Michelle Gellar just revealed that the Buffy sequel, titled Buffy The Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale, won’t actually be moving ahead and has effectively been cancelled, perhaps we should wait until said buyers have actually purchased the series before getting excited.