Thundercats is not dead, and fans of the beloved 1980s animated series from Rankin Bass can thank Godzilla vs. Kong director Adam Wingard for reviving it back from the dead. Wingard is set to direct the computer-animated adaptation for Warner Bros. via a script to be written by Wingard with regular collaborator Simon Barrett (You’re Next, The Guest).
The original series ran from 1985 to 1989, and in 2011 was resurrected for only one season on Cartoon Network and then again in 2020 under the name Thundercats Roar as a feature film, but the project had been challenging to happen for the studio.
The central plot is straightforward with a team of humanoid cat-people or cat-like humans like Lion-O, Panthro, and Cheetara fighting the evil wizard Mumm-Ra on the planet of Third Earth but also unexpectedly complex, with a combination of futuristic space sci-fi and swords-and-sorcery fantasy.
Deadline was the first to exclusively learn the news of Wingard being attached to direct Thundercats. In an interview with Deadline, Wingard made it clear he is not interested in creating a Cats-style live-action version.
“I don’t want to reinvent the way they look; I want them to look like Thundercats. I want to do a movie you’ve never seen before: A hybrid CGI film that has a hyper-real look and somehow bridges the gap between cartoon and CGI. That’s the starting point,” said Wingard to Deadline.
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