Godzilla vs. Kong director Adam Wingard has clearly been champing at the bit to share the news with the world that he’s set to co-write and direct a feature-length adaptation of beloved 1980s cartoon ThunderCats. The initial announcement came somewhat out of the blue, but ever since being made official, the filmmaker has been more than happy to talk about it in every interview he does promoting the MonsterVerse’s latest installment.
It’s clearly a passion project for the 38 year-old, who revealed that he once wrote a 270-page ThunderCats screenplay when he was in high school, but now that he’s an established name in Hollywood with a mega budget effects-driven blockbuster under his belt, he’s finally in a position to make his dream a reality.
We don’t know too much about the project just yet, but insider Daniel Richtman is reporting that Warner Bros.’ lavish ThunderCats is going to be epic in scale and more than a little dark, with the tipster also claiming that it’ll be similar to the 2011 reboot that was canceled after just one season and 26 episodes. However, it’s best to take this intel with a pinch of salt, as everything we’ve heard directly from Wingard himself about the project has specifically and exclusively mentioned the 1985-89 run as his source of inspiration.
Wingard literally said that he wants his movie to be like the 1980s cartoon brought to life, so it feels unlikely that he’d look to other iterations of the property to influence his creative vision. The 2011 run was well-received by fans and critics, though, so maybe he’ll just pick and choose certain elements from it to incorporate into his ThunderCats, because at this stage, it feels nailed on that the original and most popular version of the series is set to be the jumping-off point.
