Footage from The CW’s axed Powerpuff Girls live-action pilot has officially hit the internet.
Initially ordered in 2021, a pilot for the live-action version of the beloved Cartoon Network show was filmed, based on the original series and characters created by Craig McCracken. It featured Chloe Bennet as Blossom, Dove Cameron as Bubbles, Yana Perrault as Buttercup and Donald Faison as Professor Drake Utonium, the person responsible for creating the trio in his laboratory.
According to Variety, the leaked footage (which has now been snatched down) was made into a trailer and posted on the net. The footage featured the Powerpuff Girls following their rise to fame and taking an inside look at their lives as young adults.
As we previously reported, the official description at the time said that the team “used to be America’s pint-sized superheroes, now they’re disillusioned twentysomethings who resent having lost their childhood to crime-fighting. Will they agree to reunite now that the world needs them more than ever?”
What was shown in the footage?
Per the clips, Blossom was “constantly stressed,” Bubbles was “constantly drinking” and Buttercup was “constantly rebellious.”
As young adults, the trio of heroes are leaning into their place in society with Perrault’s Buttercup refusing to wear her dress anymore, referring to it as “gender normative and ass ugly.” Bubbles, known for her drinking, is seen throwing up in a trash can. After accidentally killing the adult, human version of Mojo Jojo, Blossom fled the group, Buttercup works as a firefighter and Bubbles is taking on Hollywood.
Specifics of the now-scrapped project
Although the live-action Powerpuff Girls picked up steam in spring 2021 with its original cast of three stars, the pilot was overhauled and reshot in May 2021. It was written by Diablo Cody and Heather Regnier, who also served as executive producers on the project alongside Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and David Madden. It was produced by Berlanti Productions and Vita Vera Films, in association with Warner Bros. Television.
“The reason you do pilots is because sometimes things miss, and this was just a miss. We believe in the cast completely. We believe in Diablo [Cody] and Heather [Regnier], the writers. We believe in the auspices of Greg Berlanti and Warner Bros. TV] studios,” said CW chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz at the time, per Variety. “In this case the pilot didn’t work. But because we see there’s enough elements in there, we wanted to give it another shot. So that’s why we didn’t want to go forward with what we had. Tonally, it might’ve felt a little too campy. It didn’t feel as rooted in reality as it might’ve felt. But again, you learn things when you test things out. And so in this case, we felt, let’s take a step back and go back to the drawing board.”
Ultimately, Bennet dropped out of the project, and it wasn’t long before it was scrapped altogether.
Is the trailer real?
After believing that the show would never see the light of day, fans were excited to get a few glimpses of what the live-action Powerpuff Girls would’ve looked like, thanks to the leaked footage, which was turned into a trailer and shared to YouTube.
Sources confirm that the footage was real, although a final trailer was never created because the show was canceled before even getting started. So while this trailer itself isn’t real, the footage was definitely from the show.
