Firefly Flies Again

Nathan Fillion Says ‘Firefly’ Animated Series In Development

Nathan Fillion says ‘Firefly’ animated series is in development with costars to voice their original roles. Concept art revealed.

DeadlineRosy Cordero

Well, it's not the full-on live-action reboot that many of us have been dreaming about for years, but it's something that perhaps is far more feasible at this point:

Firefly fans are in for a treat.

Nathan Fillion has just revealed at Awesome Con that an animated Firefly series is in advanced development based on the beloved cult sci-fi franchise—and Deadline has the details.

Fillion spoke on a panel at the Washington, D.C. event and live taping of his “Once We Were Spacemen” podcast alongside co-stars Alan Tudyk, Gina Torres, Jewel Staite, Morena Baccarin, Sean Maher, and Summer Glau, all of whom are expected to reprise their roles. Adam Baldwin, who played Jayne Cobb, will also lend his voice to the project.

Yes, they're getting the whole band back together.¹ Well, aside from creator Joss Whedon, for obvious and unfortunate reasons. Though he apparently did give his "blessing" to the project.

Sounds like the script is done and the stage set thusly:

The proposed series is set in the timeline between the original 2002 television run and its 2005 feature film continuation, Serenity, expanding the universe while preserving continuity with the established lore. Early concept art has been developed in collaboration with the Oscar and Emmy-award-winning animation studio ShadowMachine, which can be found below. The fully assembled package is expected to be taken out to buyers shortly.

This seems smart. If you're not going to do a live-action reboot, perhaps lean in to something that would be impossible (well, without some major de-aging tech and/or full-on AI, which would just piss everyone off). With animation, it obviously doesn't matter if you're using the same cast for a story set 20+ years ago. Otherwise you'd be more or less forced to do a story set 20+ years after the events of the movie. And it allows them to bring back at least one key character who was killed in Serenity...

As for where this will play/stream, that's unclear. Fillion production banner is driving it with 20th Television – from what used to be 20th Century Fox. That entity is obviously owned by Disney now, so presumably Disney+ would be the front-runner to stream this just given the rights, but they could sell it, I suppose. And it's slightly more complicated given that Universal actually owns the film rights, though given this is a series set before the film, they should be in the clear?

Almost exactly 15 years ago, Firefly was my jumping off point for an idea I had for Netflix: saving cancelled cult hits. This was just as Netflix was kicking off their own content production and it seemed to me like it could be an easy way to attract natural viewers. Netflix and others ended up doing just that – I also mentioned the notion of bringing back Arrested Development, which is exactly what Netflix did – but Firefly was left adrift... Until now!

Personally, I'm still going to entertain the possibility of a live-action revamp and perhaps this animated attempt helps that along... We're a long way from the days of a cancelled TV show using surprising popularity on DVD to make a movie.

Another Netflix Content Idea: Saving Cancelled Cult Hits | TechCrunch

Yesterday, I laid out why the new Netflix original content plan could be a game-changer in terms of television content and the ultimate disruption of cable. But it still all depends on if the show(s) they pick end up being hits. It appears that Netflix’s first bet, House of Cards, is just about as good of a bet as you could make — but it’s still no guarantee. Here’s an idea that could be much more of a guarantee: saving cult hits. Each year, dozens of shows on network and cable television get cancelled. Most of these cancellations are for good reason. But every once in a while the hammer comes down on a show that’s considered to be a cult hit — or one that could turn out to be a real hit, if given more time. The problem, of course, is that these shows often don’t have the massive viewership numbers to sell a large amount of advertising against. But that model doesn’t apply to Netflix.

TechCrunchMG Siegler

¹ Sadly without Ron Glass, who played Shepherd Book, but passed away a decade ago. ↩