Leaked trailer for the actual live-action Powerpuff Girls feels like a YouTube parody

The CW’s live-action Powerpuff Girls series reached infamy in 2021 when what seemed to have been a script for it leaked online, to the derision of…. well, a lot of folks. Now a trailer for the show has also leaked, and it’s hard to see it escaping the same reception.

The series, simply titled Powerpuff, was not without strong creative minds behind it, including filmmaker Diablo Cody (Jennifer’s Body, Lisa Frankenstein), producer Greg Berlanti (the Arrowverse, Riverdale), and a cast of TV veterans. But between toxic public vibes and internal corporate restructuring, Powerpuff was officially cancelled in 2023. This trailer for the show — featuring Donald Faison as Professor Utonium with Chloe Bennet, Dove Cameron, and Yana Perrault as Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup — is almost certainly cut from a pilot episode produced in 2021.

That might explain why it feels like it’s introducing and resolving plotlines before you can blink, giving the whole thing the arc and resolution of a movie, rather than a TV show. If it had hit the CW airwaves, it’s likely that Powerpuff wouldn’t have looked exactly like this — but it would have looked at least some like this. Whether that would have been success with audiences, well…

In the meantime, Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe is still reportedly developing an animated Powerpuff Girls reboot with original creator Craig McCracken.