ThunderCats: Movie

“Thunder . . . Thunder . . . ThunderCats HOOO!”

 

Recently it was announced that Adam Wingard, the director of Godzilla vs. Kong, would be spearheading a live-action ThunderCats film.  After years of disappointment, the fans finally have reason to rejoice.

 

The original animated series aired from 1985 to 1989; before booming into a franchise of comics, action figures, and video games.  They revived it for a single season on Cartoon Network in 2011 and then again in 2020 under the title “Thundercats Roar.”

 

Thundercats centered around a group of warriors, who were cat-like humanoids, that made Third Earth their home after their planet was destroyed.  If Hollywood used the Sword of Omens to give them “Sight Beyond Sight,” they’d have greenlit this project thirty years ago.

 

 

WHY HAS THUNDERCATS TAKEN SO LONG

In October 2007, Hollywood announced that they were moving forward with a CGI-animated Thundercats film and planned to release it in 2010.  At the time, Jerry O’Flaherty (the art director for Gears of War) was hired to direct the movie and the script was written by Paul Sopocy. 

 

In July 2009, Movieline presented four concept art pieces done by Jerry O’Flaherty.  They presented some fantastic shots of Lion-O, The Pyramid, Third Earth, and Mutant Attack on the Thundercats Ship.

https://news.thundercats.ws/2009/07/24/live-action-thundercats-concept-art-29#tc

 

In February 2011, some test footage from the doomed ThunderCats film made it online.  The scene includes a young Lion-O and Slithe; with additional footage of what the Sword of Omens would have looked like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtTZu9OlypU

 

In July 2011, LiarDice Films provided some production art from the cancelled Thundercats Movie; which shows that they may have been completely redesigning the characters.  The art is by Dave Bullock, an artist and animator who has worked on Transformers: Prime, Teen Titans, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and many other projects.

https://news.thundercats.ws/2011/07/06/cancelled-thundercats-movie-concept-art-and-storyboards-164

 

Hollywood may have canceled the CGI film in favor of focusing on ThunderCats (2011 TV series).  However, a live-action project was being developed by Rideback’s Dan Lin and Vertigo’s Roy Lee (who were producers on Wingard’s Death Note).  They hired David Coggeshall, the head writer on Watch Over Me, to write the script.

 

 

THUNDERCATS RELEASE DATE INFO

Adam Wingard and his writing partner, Simon Barrett, will be writing the script from scratch.  So don’t expect to be visiting Thundera or Third Earth until 2023 at the earliest.

 

 

THUNDERCATS STORY DETAILS

In the 10th grade, Wingard wrote a 272-page screenplay of a ThunderCats film and describes this opportunity as a "dream project."  There was a script previously written by David Coggeshall, but Wingard has decided to do a complete rewrite.

 

However, he made it abundantly clear that his characters will not look like the live-action version of “Cats.”  He would prefer to take a CGI-approach to the visuals and embrace the 80’s aesthetics of the original series.

 

“I don’t want to reinvent the way they look; I want them to look like Thundercats,” Wingard said.  “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.”

 

Even though there aren’t very many details, it’s nice to know that he intends to stay true to the classic ThunderCats, both in mythology and aesthetics.  In an interview with Den of Geek, Wingard explained that he wants the ThunderCats reboot to feel like an 80’s cartoon adventure that adults and kids alike can relate to.

 

We’ll be happy as long as it doesn’t look like this . . . https://youtu.be/UHml_J1PN9Y

THUNDERCATS CAST

While there have been no official announcements for cast members, every fan has spent years thinking about the perfect star for each role.  Check out https://www.mycast.io/stories/thundercats or https://www.mycast.io/stories/thundercats-live-action-film to see some of the suggestions.

 

To get the ball rolling for Hollywood, we decided to select the best actors to fill these iconic roles.  Here is our Dream Cast for a live-action Thundercats film!

To be continued . . .