‘Firefly’ Reunion Is An Animated Series Featuring The Return Of The Whole Cast

Second ‘verse, same as the first? After weeks of build-up and anticipation, we finally know what the Firefly reunion star Nathan Fillion and company have been teasing is all about. And while guesses ranged from a cross-over episode of The Rookie to bobbleheads, to worst-case-scenarios like Firefly-branded crypto, we now know what is actually going on: an animated series is in development, set between the events of the original series, and the movie.

As announced at Awesome Con in Washington, D.C., the series in development from Fillion’s Collision33 banner and 20th Television Animation, from showrunners Marc Guggenheim and Tara Butters. A script for the first episode has already been completed, and Joss Whedon — who created the show and was subsequently turned into persona non grata once multiple allegations of abuse were made public — is not involved… Well, with one exception.

In a post on social media, Fillion elaborated, saying, “As of this moment, the word is out. We are going to try to bring back Firefly. And this time we’re gonna animate it. Guys, bringing back Firefly, crazy or not crazy?”

In order, stars Jewel Staite, Gina Torres, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau, Sean Maher, Morena Baccarin, Alan Tudyk offer up whether it’s crazy or not, with Fillion continuing, “Now in order to do this we would need Joss’ blessing. I got it.” To editorialize: Er, yuck.

The rest of the cast continue, explaining they have the rights from 20th Century and Disney, the showrunners who “met through Firefly” and have a first episode script (interestingly, it’s marked “Episode #1: 201,” which indicates a direct second season of the series, and is further titled “Athenis. ShadowMachine will be animating the potential series.

There’s just one catch: there’s no streaming home for the series, as of yet, and they’re hoping this viral campaign will convince whoever they’re pitching to (smart money would say Hulu, but that’s just a guess).

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In addition the video, Comic Book Club was sent the following Character Design image, from ShadowMachine.

To recap briefly, Fillion, who starred as Captain Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds on the short-lived Fox sci-fi series and its big-screen spinoff Serenity, began teasing something reuniting the cast with a series of short videos of him knocking on their doors to recruit them for the project.

That eventually grew to include all the members of the cast including Gina Torres (who played second-in-command Zoe Alleyns Washburne), Morena Baccarin (Companion Inara Serra, Jewel Staite (mechanic Kaywinnet Lee “Kaylee” Frye), Sean Maher (doctor Simon Tam), Summer Glau (psychic MacGuffin River Tam), Adam Baldwin (merc with a heart Jayne Cobb), and even Fillion’s podcast co-host Alan Tudyk (who plays the as-of-Serenity deceased pilot Hoban “Wash” Washburne). The only main cast-member not approached was Ron Glass, who played spiritual leader Shepard Book, and passed away in real life in 2016.

And it was all leading up to a “big announcement” at Awesome Con in Washington D.C. today, where all of the cast-members minus Baldwin were scheduled to appear on a reunion panel. Hyping things up even more, Tudyk and Fillion’s podcast, Once We Were Spacemen, promised that fans who replied #bringbackfirefly to social media posts would get the first news about something “shiny,” which certainly implied something strongly about the return of the series.

As is, Firefly has come back in other forms since the cancellation of the series (and release of the movie). Multiple comic book series set in-continuity have come out, first from Dark Horse, and then BOOM! Studios. BOOM! let the license to Firefly lapse in 2024, canceling two previously announced prequel comics, with speculation at the time turning to Marvel possibly picking up the license (20th Century and Marvel share an owner in Disney). Novels have also been released from Titan Books, and back in 2014 the cast was supposed to reprise their roles in the Firefly Online video game; though as of 2016, there was no news about that.

But now we know, Firefly will be back as an animated series. Maybe. If you tweet hard enough.

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