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Sci-Fi Television

Animated 'Firefly' Reboot In Development With Nathan Fillion (hollywoodreporter.com) 116

Posted by BeauHD from the twenty-four-years-later dept.
An animated reboot of Firefly is in early development at 20th Television Animation with Nathan Fillion involved. The project has Joss Whedon's blessing and will be run by writers Tara Butters and Marc Guggenheim, with early concept art already underway. According to the Hollywood Reporter, "The series would be set in the timeline between the original, 11-episode TV run in 2002 and the 2005 feature film continuation, Serenity." You can watch Fillion announce the Firefly reboot on Instagram.

When the first episode of the original series premiered in late 2002, Slashdot reader fm6 wrote: "Firefly, Joss Whedon's 'anti-Trek drama' premieres tonight, on Fox, 8 E/P. I normally despise hypespeak, but this time it's the only language that fits: this is groundbreaking, mind-boggling, totally original. I've seen a bootleg of the pilot (which, unfortunately, the network is holding back) and I promise you this is the most geek-friendly SF you've seen in a long time. Yes, more so than Star Trek and B5, and way past Star Wars. I've never seen the future so skillfully, realistically, and lovingly portrayed. Here is the Official Site and a leading fan site." "This is the single new show this season I have added a season pass for to the old Tivo," CmdrTaco said at the time. "But I'll probably watch it live. This looks like it could be as good as we hope."
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Animated 'Firefly' Reboot In Development With Nathan Fillion More

Animated 'Firefly' Reboot In Development With Nathan Fillion

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  • 1st in! (Score:3)

    by deadweight ( 681827 ) on Monday March 16, 2026 @11:04AM (#66044086)
    I have high hopes for this, I loved the originals!

    • I'm just hoping they'll stay true to the originals by showing them in the wrong order and not airing the last episodes.

  • It should live-action or just not at all.

    • Economics (Score:5, Informative)

      by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Monday March 16, 2026 @11:15AM (#66044110)
      The new streaming economics are that, unless you are an established multi-billion dollar IP, like Star Trek, Marvel, Lord of the Rings, or Game of Thrones, you aren't going to get enough money together for live-action anything beyond a simple detective show or medical drama.

      There's a rare exception now and then - bestselling novel adaptation, established director or writer, etc... Whedon has a bad name right now, so nobody is going to be throwing money at him. His last huge-budget TV show, The Nevers, got pulled from HBO before it was finished airing.

      • Plus FX suck now; it's all crap CGI bid out to contractors with deadlines and budget penalties which has often made today's FX worse than it was decades ago before the outsourcing norm of today. Not that FX was a huge aspect of that series but today it's used too much and at the same time is much poorer in quality.

        I bring this up because people bitch about animation when it's often better than live action or it should usually be better simply because it's all controlled, deliberate, and unconstrained... Th

    • Re:Nope (Score:4, Insightful)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Monday March 16, 2026 @11:17AM (#66044116)
      If it is live action, it cannot be set in the intended timeline as the show was 20 years ago. Also if it is live action, it may not happen as all the actors may have other live action shows to do. Scheduling them all to be available for live-action is much larger logistical problem than scheduling individually for voice over sessions.

      • If it is live action, it cannot be set in the intended timeline as the show was 20 years ago. Also if it is live action, it may not happen as all the actors may have other live action shows to do. Scheduling them all to be available for live-action is much larger logistical problem than scheduling individually for voice over sessions.

        In addition, they have become bigger names in some cases, meaning more $$$$. My hope is the series is enough of a hit to warrant movies.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      You are free to ignore it if you have some non-negotiable disdain for animation.

      It's been over 20 years, they want Alan Tudyk in it, and besides probably an easier pitch to get produced anyway. They can't play the characters at the age they were, Alan Tudyk's character couldn't be part of a 'twenty years later' scenario, and generally speaking it would probably have to be a very different story anyway and I'm not sure whatever 'magic' that combination of folks bring to the table would work in a new formula

      • Surprisingly, most actors voices change very little over the years. There is no difference until they develop breathing problems very late in their life.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          Well, I suppose I should have been explicit as to why animated makes sense, their looks age but voices less severely so, so playing 20 years younger is pretty much only an animation thing.

          • That's what I was trying to say too; "Actors age but their voices do not" is a very good argument for doing sequels in animation instead of live action.
      • They could still do a series with them at current age, and there are so many ways they can bring back Tudyk's character, it's scifi (save him through timetravel, from a different dimension, a clone, a lost twin, or some other timewarp anomaly.)

  • nice. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by invisiblefireball ( 10371234 ) on Monday March 16, 2026 @11:31AM (#66044146)

    The rarest of all things - good news! They couldn't possibly reassemble the same cast after twenty years and then just pick up where the old one left off; Disney barely managed to do it with Daredevil after like five.

  • She'd better be nicknamed "Stotch" is all I can say.
  • I remember that original CmdrTaco post.... man I'm old.

  • Please god, no. There is ZERO chance in today's culture that it won't be "deconstructed" and shit on :(

    PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - wait another 20 years until it can me made with some sanity!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      What makes you think this? Feel like this is generally some false narrative that some people believe.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by taustin ( 171655 )

        What makes you think this?

        I've watched television. That's conclusive proof.

        • Exactly.

          • Please god, no. There is ZERO chance in today's culture that it won't be "deconstructed" and shit on :(

            This is a stack of bad moves in one sentence. “ZERO chance” is absolutism masquerading as insight. “Today’s culture” is a vague, all-purpose boogeyman with no defined meaning. “Deconstructed” is doing culture-war labor here, not analytical labor. It is a loaded buzzword meant to trigger a mood, not convey a testable claim. In plain English: this is an appeal to panic, wrapped in a sweeping generalization, with the evidence conveniently left out of frame.

            PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - wait another 20 years until it can me made with some sanity!

            That is not

            • "ZERO chance" is absolutism masquerading as insight.

              No it isn't. It's a metaphor used to make a point. I am not responsible for your lack of reading comprehension.

              "Deconstructed" is doing culture-war labor here, not analytical labor. It is a loaded buzzword meant to trigger a mood, not convey a testable claim.

              No, it isn't. Deconstruction is a literary analysis technique developed by Jaques Derrida, involving unpacking and breaking down invisible assumptions supporting a given position. Sadly, it's also a technique abused by the ignorant to twist the messages of creative works against themselves. Derrida would be turning in his grave.

              PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - wait another 20 years until it can me made with some sanity!

              That is not an argument.

              Correct! It was a request! (nobody claimed it was an argument to start

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RobinH ( 124750 )
      Remember, it takes a long time for projects to make their way through the entertainment machine. The stuff that's coming out now was greenlit years ago. I don't think they're going around handing the keys to the kingdom over to a group of directors and writers whose main credentials is that they're "young and diverse." That was proven not to work, and they will now be mandating an adult in the room.

    • Please god, no. There is ZERO chance in today's culture that it won't be "deconstructed" and shit on :(

      And? Who cares what other people think? Also what makes you think those people don't shit on past things as well? Feel free to form your own opinions on something if you would like.

    • Please god, no. There is ZERO chance in today's culture that it won't be "deconstructed" and shit on :(

      If you don't like it, don't watch it.

      PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - wait another 20 years until it can me made with some sanity!

      The past a and I suppose the future is a foreign country. History suggests that things won't just converge back to where they were 20 years ago. Culture will likely diverge more in the next 20 years.

      • History is cyclical son.

        Trends swing back and forth.

        TV goes through eras of good story-telling and eras of slop. Right now we are in an era of slop, 20 years ago we were in an era of fantastic writing.

        If TV history follows previous patterns, in another 15-20 years we will be back into an era of good writing and the slop will be gone.

        I would very much like to NOT have one of my favourite franchises ruined by the infants who pretend to be TV writers during the current era of garbage TV slop.

        • History is cyclical son.

          It is not, not strictly enough to matter for this discussion.

          Trends swing back and forth.

          Not everything comes back into fashion. One look at the history of fashion will make this readily apparent.

          TV goes through eras of good story-telling and eras of slop. Right now we are in an era of slop, 20 years ago we were in an era of fantastic writing.

          Hahah you what.

          I would very much like to NOT have one of my favourite franchises ruined by the infants

          Nathan Fillion is 54. He's many things, b

      • If you don't like it, don't watch it.

        Why would I *EVER* watch something I don't like?

        But you know, thanks I guess?? For *ALLOWING* me to do what I was going to do anyway and NOT watch things I don't like?!?

        Super glad I have your permission to watch only things I want to.

        I'm kind of curious about your opinion now though - how many shows that you *don't like* are you somehow watching because you feel obliged or required to? That seems a bizarrely masochistic to me, but to each their own I suppose...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jythie ( 914043 )

      *blink* today? Deconstruction, just like fanfic predates media.

    • That was happening 25 years ago too you know. Firefly had the advantage of having Enterprise around to draw fire in that regard, but it was still there.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by spitzak ( 4019 )

      If you don't like how things are now, why do you think they will be more agreeable to you 20 years in the future???

      • Because history is a pendulum son, trends swing back and forth over 15-20 year periods.

        I'm hoping that in 20 years, the pendulum will have swung *away* from the "garbage writing and deconstructed slop" trend and back into a "quality storytelling with good writing" trend - you know, like we had 15-20 years ago...

    • Just to be clear, you want us to fast forward to a future where everyone is dumb and passively consumes media without understanding it?

      I mean that's pretty close to what we have already. But you want it to get worse?

      • you want us to fast forward to a future where everyone is dumb and passively consumes media

        That's where we are now, that's what I am complaining ABOUT.

        I'm not sure how you got that I wanted MORE of what I was *EXPLICITLY* protesting against - but some people have some serious reading comprehension issues.

        What I want is to get AWAY from the present, and back into a future where good story telling is valued, and the writers don't make every character behave like a toddler having a temper tantrum.

        Hopefully we will have matured abit in 20years and the cultural zeitgeist will have swung back to valui

  • There's so much potential for a "getting the gang back together" live-action here. Yes, it's overwhelmingly more to create and produce. But it's worth it. We're no longer children watching cartoons. We want real people.

    • We're no longer children watching cartoons

      Watch a few Studio Ghibli films and then come back and say that with a straight face. The medium may surprise you if you explore it with an open mind.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        Though a lot of the Ghibli fair is family friendly, which may not assuage his 'cartoons aren't adulty' enough, so they'd probably need to be steered toward, say, Grave of the Fireflies rather than My Neighbor Totoro.

        Of course, plenty of examples, e.g. 'The Liberator' is clearly not a fun happy colorful cartoon, and maybe meets his standards by being gritty enough, certainly shows like Invincible and Harley Quinn are very much not for children, though maybe he would find the style too 'bright and fun'. Blad

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      Wash is going to be looking a bit... decomposed by this time as a character.

      Frankly, a bunch of people getting the gang back together for space adventures in their 50s sounds like a pretty dubious concept, *especially* in a series that leaned more into physical action on occasion like firefly did.

      Maybe all the animation you watched were 80s cartoons or maybe something like Bluey with your kids, but that does not mean that animation is some 'kiddy' thing.

      There's some *very* family unfriendly animation out th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by JustNiz ( 692889 )

        >> space adventures in their 50s sounds like a pretty dubious concept

        I'd like to award you a hearty "fuck you" from all us Gen-X'ers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jythie ( 914043 )

      I honestly can not figure out if this is parody or not.

  • Expecting the worst

  • Good idea, I'm on board (Score:3)

    by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Monday March 16, 2026 @12:00PM (#66044204)

    Animation allows the show to be as scifi as possible but fit within a more consistent budget.

    It would be nice to hear who will be handling the animation I think Firefly would be a great fit for one of the higher end anime studios like Madhouse or Trigger or Kyoto as Firefly has always felt like Firefly is Cowboy Bebop inspired so that style would work well.

    Also helps that Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk in particular have done lots and lots of voice work in the years since the show aired so they can get a lot of use from them.

    • I'd pick the people who made Arcane, the animated show based on the League of Legends MOBA. The first season of that was amazing and a well written Firefly sequel animated in that style would definitely be worth watching.

      • Arcane was quite good but when I think of Firefly as an animated series for some reason I think more traditional 2D animation but yeah, that studio (Fortiche) I would never say no to.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      Except that Firefly was not very scifi, actually it was about the least scifi, scifi show, the genre had ever seen.

      Serenity was really good in that the movie took Firefly in a decidedly more scifi direction with its explanation of the revers.

      The show never really gets into any details about how fast anything is, how fast things can be or how any of the equipment works. There is a conceit it is all mechanical and things break, can be bodged etc in episodes like 'Out of Gas' generally the show operates as a f

      • Science fiction is a big umbrella category and it itself is inside the fantasy genre depending on how we wanna slice it.

        It takes place in space in a future or alternate Earth, that's enough. Sub genre it's probably a space western, thus my comparison to Cowboy Bebop which is also scifi but with minimal tech, it's just a space setting for character stories.

        The fact it takes place in space and different planets means production costs will generally be higher just due to the various stories they can tell with

    • Sorry to burst your bubble man, but we are way beyond the "wouldn't it be cool if Trigger did it?" stage. Honestly, I was hoping Fillion had lined up Pixar. In reality, Fillion has already got a studio, and they've already produced concept art, and it looks pretty good [reddit.com]. Not cartoonish at all, so your anime dreams are dead on arrival. The studio is Shadowmachine, and they are not some low-bid offshore spec-animation mill. Not Pixar, sadly, but definitely playing in the same league. They're the studio behi

  • ... more "space westerns"! Firefly was great because Nathan Fillion is really good at making characters very likable. We'll see if that can be done in an animated feature. And yes, I would like to see more stories from the Firefly universe, provided they are well written.
    • I was going to say if anyone has read the firefly books these would be great as fodder for the scripts. one book per season of the animated version. Gives you years of material for the series. Or, it seems they are going with "new" stories, which i'll see how that works out when it's broadcast. Time will tell, but i'm cautiously optimistic.
    • I have to admit that Fillon is great at creating great characters. However, he also played one of the most psychotic ones I've ever seen in the Buffy universe. Man, he made crazy look like a jumping off point to where he had gone

  • I was hopping for a bobble-head run.

  • The anime was so similar to Firefly, you could almost say it was real life adaption.

  • Animation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Monday March 16, 2026 @03:47PM (#66044592) Journal

    There are a lot of voices in social media expressing disappointment that it's going to be animated.

    The actors are mid40s to mid60s now. Look, I loved the show, I look forward to this, but a live-action with them is not going to have the energy the original show did.

    Further, they don't have the MONEY to do live action. Nobody has picked this up but it's going to be a fucktun cheaper than actual studio, actual sets, etc. Not to mention Serenity frankly bombed - and even as a fan, I thought it sucked pretty hard. "Selling this" isn't going to be about nostalgia, it's going to be about convincing some money guys that they'll make more money, full stop.

    I'm vaguely concerned that neither Whedon nor Minnear are associated; the actors were charming but the writing is what really popped in the show. Whedon's been cancelled into the Phantom Zone last time anyone saw him (somewhere a light-year past Louis CK, I think) but Minnear did OOG which I think is one of the best episodes on television.

    I *hope* this is a success and wish them all the best.

  • About time (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Monday March 16, 2026 @03:53PM (#66044596)

    'The Rookie' will soon have had his 10 years in.

  • ...I found out that the Firefly reboot is animated rather than live-action. I mean WTF.

  • Here's hoping, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rocket rancher ( 447670 ) <themovingfinger@gmail.com> on Monday March 16, 2026 @11:29PM (#66045208)

    ...what worked for rescuing an IP hopelessly mired in canon with a devoted fanbase is (probably) not gong to work for Firefly. I'm thinking of Paramount's against-all-odds successful reboot of ST:TOS with the canon-drenched, near-peer ST:SNW. I think that was a lucky accident, not a tactical call by paramount. Strange New Worlds landed in that narrow band where canon could be respected without being strangled by it. And I'm calling it a lucky guess, not a deliberate strategy, because of what happened with Enterprise. Enterprise fled so far into the past that it felt less like a prequel, and more like a deliberate attempt to get out from under the fanbase's radar. A dick move, basically, and the fandom responded accordingly.

    This new Firefly cartoon feels like the same kind of maneuver: find a nice soft continuity pocket between the series and Serenity, tuck the story in there, and hope nobody notices that safe timeline placement is doing a lot of the creative heavy lifting. It is basically a safe-space reboot for a property whose closure-granting movie was unusually clean and graceful, but still managed to piss off the series' fanbase.

    So I have a couple of questions:

    Does Fillion really think that this is going to mollify the still-pissed-off chunk of the fanbase? "Oh, hey, look it's Book. He's going to die, you know. so is Wash. Pretty soon, too, if canon is any indication. But let's watch anyway, right?" I can see that fanbase already rolling their eyes and sharpening their social-media swords for the premier. TBH, i should say, "if that premier actually happens." Fillion still needs a distributor. And to a distributor like Netflix or Amazon, a reboot of a cult classic is a risky asset, and this particular package that Fillion has pulled together even more so, because of the cognitive dissonance "Serenity" is going to generate in potential viewers familiar with the canon storyline.

    And why a cartoon? Animation is not a magic defibrillator for a beloved science-fiction property flatlined by executive meddling. Babylon 5 already reminded us that an animated return can be perfectly respectable and still not reignite the old fusion torch. And Paramount's casting of (relatively) fresh new talent for canon-drenched characters shows that you don't need to resort to animation to preserve the look-and-feel of a series, decades after the original actors aged out of their canon roles. Seriously, who'd a-thunk an installment in the Trek universe where a no-name actor replaced Shatner as Captain Kirk would actually succeed? Yeah, I know...caught me by surprise, too. :)

    Maybe Fillion and company can pull it off. I hope they do. I liked Firefly, and I really liked Serenity the movie. But "an animated series we found a safe pocket in the timeline for" is not, by itself, a reason to believe lightning will strike twice.

    And one more question: If Whedon is not creatively involved, why foreground his blessing at all? All it does is drag a creator's [giantfreakinrobot.com] baggage [screenrant.com] into every pitch meeting for a project that already has enough risk baked in. I want to see the project land a distributor, but this is not a tactically sound move by Fillion.

  • Beyond the calm, this news is exciting!

  • A lot of people in this thread seem stuck on "yay, Firefly, boo cartoon, no AI thank you" as if animation and AI are automatically some kind of downgrade. I think that gets this exactly backwards.

    Fillion has to thread a bunch of needles to make this project work. The timeline placement is not just a continuity dodge. It is also the one place where the project can still use Wash without crashing headlong into the fanbase's cognitive dissonance from the Serenity film, but it also slams into a different probl

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