Nostalgia alert! ‘Scooby-Doo’ live-action series in the works

Los Angeles [US], April 30 (ANI): “Scooby Dooby Doo, where are you?” song has been lingering in the minds of the fans of ‘Scooby-Doo’ ever since they learned about the potential live-action series of the classic Warner Bros. IP.

As per Variety, streaming giant Netflix is likely to develop ‘Scooby-Doo! The Live-Action Series’ with writers Josh Appelbaum and Scott Rosenberg.

The one-hour drama project is said to be nearing a deal at the streamer with a script-to-series commitment. Exact plot details are being kept under wraps aside from the fact it will be based on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

Warner Bros. Television will produce, with the studio having recently launched the “Dead Boys Detectives” series on Netflix.

Josh Appelbaum and Scott Rosenberg serve as writers and will also executive produce along with Andre Nemec and Jeff Pinkner under their Midnight Radio banner. Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and Leigh London Redman will executive produce via Berlanti productions (the company is currently under an overall deal at WBTV). Jonathan Gabay of Berlanti Productions and Adrienne Erickson will co-executive produce.

Created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, the Scooby-Doo! franchise was launched in 1969 with the duo’s first animated series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! for then-Hanna-Barbera (later absorbed into Warner Bros. Animation).

The Netflix project would not be the first live-action Scooby-Doo project to make it to the screen. Most famously, ‘Scooby-Doo’ was released in 2002 and starred Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard, and Linda Cardellini, with Neil Fanning voicing Scooby. The film was a box office success, generating over USD 250 million worldwide, Variety reported.

A sequel with the same cast, ‘Scooby-Doo: Monsters Unleashed’, came out in 2004 and grossed over USD 180 million. There was also the live-action TV film ‘Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins’ and its sequel that were released in 2009 and 2010.

There have also been a wide range of Scooby-Doo animated projects over the years, beginning with the original cartoon series in the late 1960s. Various incarnations have followed over the years, spanning multiple animated series and films.