The news that Netflix’s upcoming reboot Scooby-Doo: Origins will be a live-action take on the classic animated franchise proves that one old TV trend still stubbornly refuses to die. Set at a summer camp where the Mystery Inc. gang first met, Netflix’s upcoming live-action TV series Scooby-Doo: Origins will be a YA mystery spin on the classic children’s franchise. This marks the first live-action TV series in the 57-year history of the franchise after a pair of live-action theatrical movies in the early 2000s, dozens of animated movies, and a string of cartoon shows.
Although the critically abhorred Velma explored an R-rated Scooby-Doo before Scooby-Doo: Origins, that series was still animated and retained the brand’s comedic tone shared by most earlier incarnations of the franchise. In fact, numerous commentators even suggested that Velma’s R-rating was somewhat redundant since, outside a few dirty jokes, the show mostly maintained the same self-deprecating sense of humor and self-aware comedy style as the franchise’s earlier, more family-friendly cartoon shows like Be Cool, Scooby-Doo and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
In contrast, the shift to live-action featured in Netflix’s Scooby-Doo: Origins comes with a substantial tonal change. The show is marketed as a supernatural mystery, and its co-creators, Josh Applebaum and Scott Rosenberg, are best known for their work on the underrated Netflix teen drama Everything Sucks, the MGM+ horror series From, and the US remake of the British cult hit Life on Mars. All this proves that Scooby-Doo: Origins will almost certainly be that most divisive of TV phenomena, namely, a live-action teen drama re-imagining of a classic kid-friendly franchise.
Scooby-Doo: Origins Has A Tough Task Ahead
2017’s Riverdale started this trend, and the show’s initial success saw it soon followed by the supernatural horror spinoff Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which re-imagined the chintzy ‘90s TV comedy Sabrina the Teenage Witch as a dark Lovecraftian horror story. In the years that followed, The CW’s Nancy Drew, Hulu’s Hardy Boys, The CW’s Tom Swift, and even Disney+’s Goosebumps all fit into this emerging genre of TV shows that turned beloved children’s media franchises into more mature, teen-oriented live-action dramas.
A glance at the reviews of all of these shows, but specifically anything after seasons 1 and 2 of Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, proves that they didn’t take themselves all that seriously. However, all the titles listed above were still aimed squarely at teens rather than children, and all of them featured far more sex, violence, and mature content than earlier entries into their respective franchises. Even HBO’s Pretty Little Liars reboot got in on this trend, taking an already dark teen series and turning it into an R-rated, gory horror show.
While the prospect of Scooby-Doo: Origins turning Scooby-Doo into a teen drama might sound fun, YA live-action takes on kids’ media franchises tend to hit an awful in-between where they’re too campy for adult viewers, but inappropriate for actual children. Riverdale certainly wasn’t suitable for kids, but the aggressively silly plotting of its later seasons made the show feel too self-aware and winking to work as a supernatural mystery in its own right.
How Netflix’s Scooby-Doo Can Defy The Trend
Balancing comedic relief with actual plot stakes is tough for any show, but particularly a series that is adapting a franchise as iconic as Scooby-Doo. Luckily, Netflix’s upcoming Scooby-Doo: Origins could potentially buck the trend of live-action YA adaptations sinking like a stone upon release. The live-action reboot is a rare example of an aged-up children’s franchise adaptation that could succeed since its characters are more iconic and familiar than those of Archie Comics or Nancy Drew, so the show has more potential for smart subversion.
When Riverdale began airing in 2017, for a large portion of the audience, the show was their first introduction to Archie Comics characters like Ronnie, Jughead, Betty, and Archie. In contrast, every generation of Scooby-Doo: Origins viewers will have grown up with one version of Scooby-Doo’s Mystery Inc. gang or another, whether it is the original show’s heroes all the way back in 1967’s Scooby-Doo, Where Are You, the early 2000s reboot What’s New, Scooby-Doo?, or the new versions of the gang introduced in 2020’s animated movie Scoob!.
Scooby-Doo: Origins Has A Great Template For Success
Not only that, but unlike Riverdale’s increasingly bizarre, shapeless plot, Scooby-Doo: Origins does have a template to follow in its attempts to bring the humor and charm of the animated show to life in live-action. The live-action Scooby-Doo movies of the early 2000s, scripted by a pre-fame James Gunn, famously nailed the campy tone of the show and added a touch of self-aware meta-comedy without depriving viewers of a story with stakes. Not as outright childish as 2020’s Scoob!, but nowhere near as self-consciously edgy as 2023’s R-rated Velma, these movies are a perfect template.
If Scooby-Doo: Origins hopes to succeed, the show needs to feel like more than a novelty. It is inherently amusing to imagine the heroes of Scooby-Doo’s cartoonish, larger-than-life world as real-life teens navigating crushes, in-fighting, and grounded tribulations of teenage life, but this idea has been done to death by both the franchise itself and its many imitators. Author Bill Wood’s book Be Right Back affectionately re-imagines the Mystery Inc. crew as the stars of a slasher movie, while writer Edgar Cantero’s earlier hit Meddling Kids pictures the gang reuniting to tackle a Lovecraftian threat.
The prospect of a more grown-up version of Scooby-Doo was already seen not just in the regrettable HBOMax blunder Velma, but also 2012’s earlier parody movie Saturday Morning Mystery, 2010’s deservedly acclaimed darker animated reboot Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated, and 2016’s DC Comics release Scooby Apocalypse. The concept alone isn’t enough.
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Luckily, Scooby-Doo: Origins also boasts a killer cast, including Paul Walter Hauser, Scream 7’s breakout star McKenna Grace, and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret‘s Abby Ryder Fortson as Velma. Thus, while it might not be easy, Scooby-Doo: Origins could become the first YA live-action adaptation of an existing kids’ media franchise that actually lives up to its considerable potential.
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