And…maybe offering a clue or two as to why it was canceled.Back in 2023, a live-action series featuring the grown-up Powerpuff Girls was canceled at The CW following a number of reported troubles with the project. Now, a new teaser video has surfaced online showcasing what the show might have been like, and it’s…interesting, to say the least.
The video was made available this morning on the YouTube channel “Lost Media Busters” but has since been struck with a copyright takedown from Warner Bros. Entertainment. The three-and-a-half-minute trailer establishes the premise of the series: Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup have grown into young adults and left home, with Blossom (played by Chloe Bennet) becoming stressed and burnt out, Bubbles (Dove Cameron) turning to drinking, and Buttercup (Yana Perrault) becoming generally rebellious and expressing distaste of gender norms.
Official images of the three Powerpuff Girls from CW’s live-action effort: Dove Cameron, Chloe Bennet, and Yana Perrault.In the trailer, the three inadvertently kill a human named Mojo and flee Townsville, before returning home years later to visit their father, Professor Utonium (Donald Faison). There, they encounter Mojo’s now-adult son, Jojo, who has become mayor of Townsville, brainwashed the citizenry, and is seeking revenge. The trailer is peppered with “edgy” humor, including Bubbles making a quip about juggalos and Buttercup suggesting Jojo has a “hate-boner” for Blossom.
CW has confirmed to Variety that the footage is real, but that this particular trailer was not official nor intended for public view at any point.
The live-action Powerpuff Girls show was first reported on back in 2020, but was canceled in 2023 after a number of setbacks, including a “miss” of an initial pilot and the departure of Bennet from the project.
“The reason you do pilots is because sometimes things miss, and this was just a miss,” said CW chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz of the scrapped pilot at the time. “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 studios. 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.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
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