Somebody wake up the Reverend, as I have a confession. I think 2002’s Scooby Doo is a fine little movie. Just the right side of meta, and self-referential enough without it becoming a burden. It is laugh-out-loud funny in places and will always score extra points for leaning into the issues with Scrappy Doo.
Of course, this is Hollywood, and we are not allowed nice things, because reasons. So they had to ruin everything with 2023’s Velma, a cartoon set in the world of Scooby Doo so awful that it might actually be a historical artefact. It was one of the first times that deflecting criticism by loudly declaring any critics as some kind of “-ist” stopped working.
Watching them realise their magic words no longer had any effect was like watching a wizard get told: “You have no power anymore, old man!”
What will any new iteration of Scooby Doo bring? Well, it is from Netflix, so anything is possible.
What’s On Netflix reports that a new, live-action streaming series based on Scooby Doo is set to start filming in April in Atlanta, Georgia.
According to the report, the tone will be similar to Stranger Things. It was created by Josh Appelbaum and Scott Rosenberg (Citadel) with executive producer Greg Berlanti. Appelbaum and Rosenberg will serve as showrunners. The cast will apparently be made up of actual teenagers, rather than taking the usual American way of casting late 20s actors, already beaten hollow by their second divorce and years on a Tinseltown casting couch, as high schoolers.
It is pegged as… gasp!… a modern reimagining. It will be set during the final summer at camp as old friends Shaggy and Daphne become entangled in a mystery surrounding a lonely, lost Great Dane puppy that may have been a witness to a supernatural murder.
Together with the pragmatic and scientific townie, Velma, and the strange, but ever so handsome new kid, Fred, they set out to solve the case that is pulling each of them into a creepy nightmare that threatens to expose all of their secrets.
Warner Bros. Television is making the show for Netflix.
