Actress Dove Cameron has been talking to ComicBook about the ill-fated pilot of Powerpuff – a show created by Jennifer’s Body writer Diablo Cody. It was to tell the story of an older and more world-weary version of The Powerpuff Girls, grappling with the consequences of having been celebrity superheroes when they were small children. The pilot wasn’t picked up by The CW, as had been planned.
A pilot episode was filmed in early 2021, with Cameron, Yana Perrault, and Agents of SHIELD star Chloe Bennett. Rather than passing on the project all together, The CW plan to shoot a new pilot. Bennett had since left the show, so her role will need to be re-cast.
“I have to be careful, because it’s such a big property, and it’s kind of a thin line I have to walk, talking about it in a way that doesn’t give anything away, or say anything too misleading,” Cameron told ComicBook. “Where we’re at right now, I can confidently say, is that the producers and (writer Diablo Cody), and everybody involved, their last communication with me is that they’re very, very, very pleased in a way that we were all not.”
“The first time we did the pilot, we’ve all talked about it and likened it to Game of Thrones, and then they were like ‘Scrap it. If we’re going to do this, we have to do it right straight out of the gate, or it’s not worth it.'”
“Powerpuff is such a high concept show, and the way we wanted to do it was so high concept, that there were 99 ways it could have gone wrong, and one way it could have gone right. And I think we were close, but we didn’t nail it. That’s for a number of reasons. I remember them calling me and being like ‘This is how it ended up, and this is what we would rather do,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, I can’t even be mad about that. That’s fair. Let’s do that, then.’ I think they really just want to get it right.”
Dark and gritty TV shows led by women are having something of a moment, thanks to Yellowjackets, which also might help the fortunes of Powerpuff.
While we wait for more news about Powerpuff, check out our guide to season 3 of The Boys.