If there is a mystical point where a TV show or a movie realizes it is time to call it a day and give up, then perhaps that point has arrived for the ill-fated Powerpuff Girls live-action reboot as one third of its crimefighting team has quit the project. Chloe Bennet, formerly a star of Agents of SHIELD, was due to play Blossom in the pilot for The CW’s new iteration of the kids cartoon series, but has walked away citing scheduling issues as the reason for her unexpected departure. So not that it seems the show is doomed to failure then?
Bennet has been filming the pilot episode of the proposed series for months now, alongside fellow Agents of SHIELD alum Dove Cameron and Yana Perrault making up the rest of the Powerpuff team as Bubbles and Buttercup respectively. Bennet was asked to sign a new deal to continue on the project but apparently declined. However, the production is now pressing ahead with a hunt for a new Blossom despite filming on the pilot having been delayed thanks to the entire script having to be rewritten following a leaked version being ridiculed a few months ago.
Considering the series is being based on the back of a very bright, bouncy and young demographic attracting cartoon, the issues around the original script, which was seemingly mostly filmed at the time of the script leak, centered on it being a constant string of cringe-worthy sex jokes and pop culture references. Even when it was explained that the series is being aimed at a slightly older audience than the cartoon, the whole thing proved to be so terrible that the production was halted while the entire pilot script was reworked to “change the tone” of the show.
The pilot is written by Diablo Cody and Heather Regnier, and now centers on the three characters from the cartoon as slightly bitter and disillusioned twenty-something year olds who feel they have lost their childhood to fighting crime and hold great resentment for having done so. Yes, even the principle storyline just seems to scream hokey, but it looks like despite the bad press and obvious issues around filming and now casting, the Powerpuff train is not going to stop until it reaches the station, no matter how many carriages fall off along the way.
The CW’s Mark Pedowitz spoke at the time of the leaked script to say that the new material needed to do justice to the trio of crime-fighters, although some would argue that their legacy isn’t exactly one of the greatest stories to be remembered in the history of TV. He said that a number of aspects of the working script would be looked at again as the tone of the pilot episode appeared to be “a little too campy.” From what was seen of the script, it was like someone had taken an unused script from a 70s sex comedy and changed the names in it.
With the production now having to find its third lead again, and obviously scrap any new filming that has taken place, it is likely to be a while before we see the result of all of this heartache come to fruition, if it ever makes it.
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