‘Scooby-Doo’
Courtesy Everett Collection
Greg Berlanti and Netflix are going for a ride in the Mystery Machine.
The streaming giant is near a deal for a live-action TV series based on the beloved Hanna-Barbera animated cartoon Scooby-Doo. The project has a script-to-series commitment at Netflix, meaning if the script is well received, it would trigger a straight-to-series order for what is considered a live-action update of the classic cartoon.
Reps for Netflix, producers Warner Bros. Television and Berlanti Productions declined to comment, as a deal has not yet formally closed.
Josh Appelbaum and Scott Rosenberg — who previously adapted Cowboy Bebop for Netflix and High Fidelity for Hulu — are attached to pen the script and exec produce via their Midnight Radio banner’s André Nemec and Jeff Pinkner. Berlanti and his Berlanti Productions partner Sarah Schechter will exec produce alongside the company’s Leigh London Redman. Berlanti Productions’ Jonathan Gabay and Midnight Radio’s Adrienne Erickson will be credited as co-exec producers. Warner Bros. Television, where Berlanti has been based for years, is the studio as the company owns animation studio Hanna-Barbera.
The live-action dramatic take on Scooby-Doo comes after Warner Bros. Pictures relaunched the beloved franchise about a dog and his friends Shaggy, Fred, Velma and Daphne (sometimes with his lesser-loved nephew, Scrappy-Doo) who solve mysteries as a live-action feature film in the early 2000s. The pic, penned by James Gunn and starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard, Linda Cardellini and Rowan Atkinson, grossed $275 million worldwide and prompted a sequel two years later. A third film was ultimately scrapped. In 2009, however, Cartoon Network made a live-action comedy horror film with a then largely unknown cast.
More recently, Warners corporate sibling Max launched an animated spinoff, Velma, geared toward adults. (Season two of the series from exec producer and voice star Mindy Kaling, debuted in April and is awaiting word on its future.)
Created in 1969 by writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, the animated Scooby-Doo cartoon aired in syndication on CBS and ABC until it was canceled in 1986. The franchise has gone on to feature scores of adaptations and spinoffs over the years and is considered one of the greatest TV cartoons in history.
The Scooby-Doo drama comes as Berlanti continues to deliver for Netflix. In addition to Lifetime-turned-Netflix hit You, Berlanti recently launched Max transfer Dead Boy Detectives. The series, considered an offshoot of Sandman, landed in Netflix’s top 10 U.S. series within its first 24 hours of launch. Berlanti Productions also was behind Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Berlanti/Schechter Films also had a first-look feature deal with the streamer. Berlanti’s TV roster also includes Max’s The Girls on the Bus (which was briefly developed at Netflix), the final season of The CW’s Superman & Lois, All American, All American: Homecoming, NBC’s Found and the upcoming medical drama Dr. Wolf. Berlanti is repped by CAA and Felker Toczek.
For Midnight Radio, meanwhile, Scooby would become the prolific production company’s latest TV foray following Amazon’s Citadel and MGM+’s From. The company, repped by WME, previously adapted Cowboy Bebop as a live-action series from its anime original.
