The directors of The Super Mario Bros. Movie will officially be writing a reboot of The Flintstones. The directors, Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, earned audience acclaim for their adaptation of the popular video games series, having grossed over $1 billion at the box office with The Super Mario Bros. Movie. With that level of success, they are being handed control over a project that will adapt The Flintstones, a show which originally aired from 1960 to 1966.
Together, Horvath and Jelenic will be writing Meet the Flintstones, a movie that will walk through the origins of the famous family, according to Deadline. The project is still in early development and details remain sparse, but it is expected that the movie will be animated. That puts it in sharp contrast with its previous movie adaptation, The Flintstones, which was a live-action project that succeeded at the box office but failed to earn critical approval.
What Could A Flintstones Revival Look Like?
It’s been a long time since The Flintstones was a regular part of pop culture. While The Super Mario Bros. Movie has been able to build its success on the back of the highly regarded series of the Nintendo games, the original run of The Flintstones ended in 1966, and has suffered long stretches without fresh running show on network television. There have been collections for The Flintstones, but outside of the UK Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs spin-off, there haven’t been many successful revivals.
That’s exactly why an origin movie for The Flintstones can be a success. Newer audiences won’t have much experience with the franchise, making an origin exactly the angle that can launch it into success. The timing isn’t entirely perfect, as Warner Bros. Animation is currently working on Bedrock, a sequel series of The Flintstones. Bedrock is already in development and has announced its cast, including Elizabeth Banks (Pebbles), Nicole Byer (Betty), and Joe Lo Truglio (Barney).
As Meet the Flintstones will serve as an origin story, it’s likely that the project could involve Fred and Wilma meeting, falling in love, and beginning their family, a story not properly explored in any prior projects. It could also involve the early days of friendship between Fred and Barney, or the creation of Bedrock itself.
