I, perhaps like many of you, watched and enjoyed The Powerpuff Girls on TV when I was a kid. I remember liking its wacky cast of villains, its excellent running bits, and its sharp satire which, at the time, I was just becoming old enough to properly understand. The Powerpuff Girls was excellent cartooning, and it also, in 2005, ended after its later seasons declined in quality following the departure of creator Craig McCracken. There have been a few spin-offs since, none quite as good, and its fans have grown into adults. The Powerpuff Girls is, and has been, ostensibly over for quite some time.
So, naturally, a lot of people seem awfully keen on trying to dig this cartoon out of its grave in a misguided attempt to make money off of intellectual property, as one must do with everything beloved from the ’80s, ’90s, and early ’00s nowadays. This time, it’s Warner Bros. doing the honors, having announced today (via Variety) at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival that a new Powerpuff Girls film is in development.
Variety, however, also reports that there isn’t even a deal in place for this film yet. There’s no script, no greenlight, no plot, no actors, not even really a name attached. What this sounds like to me is that no one actually has any good ideas for a Powerpuff revival. Warner Bros. just owns an IP and wants to make money from it, and is hoping this announcement will enable it to find some folks who know how to make that happen. Great. Fantastic motivation to make art, guys.
We’ve been here so many times before, both with IP revivals in general and with The Powerpuff Girls in particular. The series got a revival in 2016 that was mediocre at best and ended after three seasons in 2019. A second attempt at a revival, this time with McCracken involved, was announced in 2022, but it’s been radio silence ever since, leading one to wonder if this project hasn’t fallen apart somewhere. And don’t get me started on the dismal-looking live-action revival at The CW that was canceled before it was ever released.
I feel like an old crank at this point, going through a song and dance like this each time a massive entertainment corporation wants to reanimate a zombie franchise to suck the last dregs of profit from its bones (which feels like it happens every week or so), but here I go again: leave The Powerpuff Girls alone! Nothing good can come of this! The original show was good, it was formative for a lot of people, and it’s okay to let things end. Truly, I find it hard to believe that anyone is coming in with new ideas for this nearly two-decade-old series that are so good as to make it worth bringing back. We’ve already seen what happens when Bubbles goes hardcore, when Ms. Keane goes on a date with Professor Utonium, and when Mojo Jojo saves the town (repeatedly, somehow). We’re good!
I am begging Big Entertainment to stop rehashing the same stories over and over again. I am exhausted. Please put some money toward new creators making new stuff and never make me use the words “intellectual property” again.