It’s up to Disney if we’ll ever see a revival of X-Men: The Animated Series, as producer Larry Houston has confirmed that preliminary discussions about a reboot have taken place. Last year, Houston had suggested that he was collaborating with the show’s creative team to pitch a reboot of the show to Disney, perhaps as a part of their new Disney+ streaming service. Providing an update on the potential revival during a virtual Wizard World panel on Friday, Houston revealed that the reboot has indeed been pitched, leaving it up to Disney to put in the series order.
“We’ve had talks, but that’s about it,” Houston said, making it clear that the ball is now in Disney’s court to make it happen. “We’ve made conversation and it’s up to them to make the decision, but we’ve let them know that we’re all available for whatever they want to do in the future.”
Though he considers himself semi-retired, Houston also made it clear that this was one of very few projects that would have him happily returning to work. “Whatever they wanted to do if we had all the original team,” Houston said, whether the project was for a one-off special or a five-part limited series. “That’s what I would come out of retirement for.”
The X-Men: The Animated Series cast would also love to see the revival happen, as expressed in the Wizard World panel. Beast actor George Buza noted they would “all love to do it,” with Mr. Sinister voice actor Chris Britton adding that giving the series a new season “would be fabulous.” Additionally, Wolverine voice actor Cal Dodd added that developing a continuation of the “lovely series” would “cost them absolutely nothing. Kind of like what they pay now.”
When Houston previously spoke about his desire to revisit the beloved cartoon series, he said that the idea was to essentially “continue where we left off.” This would mean giving the series the same art style as seen in the original version, complete with its original voice cast and creative team, otherwise the show just would not feel the same. We have since seen the X-Men brought to life in a long-running series of movies between 2000 and 2019, but for some longtime Marvel fans, there remains a fond nostalgia for the original animated series from the ’90s. There’s no doubt that any kind of revival would generate tremendous excitement with the fans.
Celebrating at this point would be premature, as there hasn’t been any official word from Disney about a potential reboot. Still, it should be nice for fans to know that there’s a good chance of it happening with so many key figures from the original series very eager to return. We can only hope that it finally ends up happening for real, but in the meantime, the classic episodes of the hit animated series can be binge-watched anytime. You can watch all five seasons of X-Men: The Animated Series on Disney+. This news comes to us from ComicBook.com.
