While news broke last summer that Warner Bros. was looking to make a new, live-action Scooby-Doo movie, Deadline is now reporting that the company is working on a new animated feature under their Warner Animation Group banner.
Tony Cervone (Scooby-Doo! and Kiss: Rock and Roll Mystery), who directed a number of straight-to-video appearances for the world’s favorite crime solving dog, will direct here. His history directing and producing a number of Hanna-Barbera projects should give the film some ties to the franchise’s past. No plot details have been released, but in the 2004 live-action sequel, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, the Mystery Machine team took on number of their previously unmasked monsters, making it unlikely the upcoming film will be self-referential a la the upcoming Goosebumps movie. Matt Lieberman (Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the Chief) is writing the script. Along with Scooby-Doo, he’s also writing the script for the Short Circuit remake.
A Hannah-Barbera staple, the Scooby-Doo series spawned a number of spin-off’s and remakes that included celebrity appearances from Batman and Robin, The Harlem Globetrotters, and Don Knotts, as well as Sonny and Cher. He has also solved mysteries with the help of his nephew Scrappy-Doo, his cousin Scooby-Dum, brother Yabba-Doo, and distant cousin Scooby-Dee. There’s no telling if this new film will include those characters or focus on just the original team.
The film is currently set to be released on September 21,2018.