The CW’s live-action iteration of The Powerpuff Girls has hit another snag.
Chloe Bennet is out of the pilot, according to Variety.
The role of Blossom will be recast.
Powerpuff was in development for the 2021-22 TV season on the young-skewing network, but the channel opted to retool the series post-pilot.
“Sometimes things miss, and this was just a miss,” CW Chairman & CEO Mark Pedowitz told reporters earlier this year.
“We believe in the cast completely, we believe in Diablo [Cody] and Heather [Regnier], the writers, and we believe in the auspices of [executive producer] Greg Berlanti and Warner [Bros.] Studios.”
“In this case, the pilot didn’t work. But because we see enough elements in there, we’re going to give it another shot. We didn’t want to go forward with what we had.”
It’s not uncommon for shows to go through various stages of development before they hit the air, and sometimes the cast that started with the project cannot stick around to wait for eons for networks to pick them up.
In this instance, scheduling conflicts are to blame, with the in-demand star moving on to other projects.
Casting for a new Blossom will get underway later this year, and another pilot should be filmed, likely for the 2022-23 TV season.
The cast of the original pilot also includes Dove Cameron as Bubbles Utonium, Yana Perrault as Buttercup Utonium, Donald Faison as Professor Drake Utonium, Nicholas Podany as Joseph “Jojo” Mondel Jr., Robyn Lively as Sara Bellum, and Tom Kenny as the narrator.
All of the above names are still expected to be with the show when it films its retooled pilot.
Fans were understandably invested in Bennet as a lead of the potential series, but now the door is open for someone else to step into the coveted role.
Over to you, TV Fanatics.
Who do you want to join the series in the aftermath?
Hit the comments below.
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.