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Fox is preparing to meet The Flintstones — again.
The network is teaming with Warner Bros. Animation and star and executive producer Elizabeth Banks to develop Bedrock, an update of the classic animated series. The adult animation project, first announced nearly two years ago, will be set 20 years after the 1960s series and center on a grown-up Pebbles Flintstone (voiced by Banks).
Lindsay Kerns (Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, DC Super Hero Girls) will write the pilot script.
“Long before the Simpsons and Springfield, the Griffins and Quahog or even when the Belchers started serving burgers on Ocean Avenue, there were the Flintstones and Bedrock,” said Fox Entertainment president Michael Thorn. “Their imprint on the animation universe is undeniable and the idea of adapting it for today’s audience is a challenge we here at Fox are very much looking forward to taking on with Warner Bros., Elizabeth and Lindsay. No pressure whatsoever, really.”
Bedrock will follow a 20-something Pebbles as she begins her own career while her dad, Fred, nears retirement. With the Stone Age giving way to an enlightened new Bronze Age, the residents of Bedrock will find this evolution “harder than a swing from Bamm-Bamm’s club,” per the show’s logline.
“The Flintstones are the first family of primetime animation,” said Peter Girardi, executive vp alternative programming at Warner Bros. Animation. “Elizabeth and Lindsay have a brilliant take on these characters, and Fox and [Banks’ company] Brownstone are the perfect partners to bring them back to primetime. This is going to rock (sorry).”
Bedrock is not Fox’s first take on a new Flintstones. The network gave a straight-to-series order for a reboot from Seth MacFarlane a decade ago but opted out of the show in 2012 after reading early scripts.
The Flintstones aired from 1960 to ’66 on ABC and was the first primetime animated series on American television. The show has since cemented a place in pop culture via numerous animated spinoffs and a pair of live-action films in 1994 and 2000. Fox’s free streaming platform Tubi has landed rights to the original series and will begin running it on May 1.
Banks and Max Handelman are executive producing via their Brownstone Productions. Kerns and Brownstone’s Dannah Shinder are co-EPs. Bedrock will seek to join a roster of animated shows at Fox that includes The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, The Great North, Duncanville the upcoming Housebroken, and a show from Dan Harmon slated to premiere in 2022.
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