Director Adam Wingard's ThunderCats movie was first announced back in 2021, around the release of his Godzilla Vs. Kong Monsterverse film and the project has received very few updates over the last 5 years.
But with Wingard recently unleashing Onslaught in theaters, attention has once again turned to the American filmmaker's potential live-action take on the Thunderian space refugees.
In a new interview, Wingard stated, "My career’s kind of bouncing around, so different things have taken precedence. But [ThunderCats is] still kicking around. I think it’s just a matter of finding time to really re-concentrate and re-engage with it."
"We did a new draft at the beginning of this year. It wasn’t too long ago, and then things got put on hold for this movie [Onslaught]. So I don’t really have any exciting updates. But it’s not dead. It lives. It’s just not the number one [thing] I’m working on right now."
ThunderCats has enjoyed a strong fan following ever since the animated series debuted in 1985 and has undergone several reboots, including a modernized 2011 reimagining from Cartoon Network that still resonates with fans to this day.
However, it sounds like Wingard isn't preparing to tackle the Third Earth adventures of Lion-O, Panthro, Cheetara, Tygra and WilyKit and WilyKat in his next cinematic outing.
Warner Bros. is the studio home for the live-action ThunderCats movie, and with their merger with Paramount in judicial limbo, it's hard to imagine the studio taking a big risk on the project.
It certainly doesn't help that another '80s action cartoon staple, Masters of the Universe, recently received its own live-action reimagining, which bombed big time for Amazon Prime Studios in theaters.
The film reportedly cost between $170-$200 million and only grossed $113.8 million worldwide - a huge loss for any major movie studio.
However, the live-action He-Man movie is reportedly performing very well on streaming. It's still the #1 movie on Prime Video after several weeks and that comes after Nielsen streaming data reported that the the film racked up 1.17 billion minutes of watch time in its very first week.
More recently, it was confirmed that Amazon Prime Video's upcoming live-action Voltron movie starrring Henry Cavill would be skipping theaters altogether, as will Sydney Sweeney's Gundam movie.
Looking at how things are playing out, if Warner Bros. also wants to hedge their bets on an animated '80s icon, releasing a live-action ThunderCats movie on HBO Max might actually be the smarter play over a risky theatrical run.
In other ThunderCats movie news, Warner Bros. recently teased the existence of an animated adaptation at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival this past June, which sounds like it's a totally separate project from what Wingard is developing.
Stay tuned for future updates as we cover which project will move forward first.