The CW's Powerpuff Girls Live-Action Reboot Has Lost Its Lead Actress
"The Powerpuff Girls" originally created by Craig McCracken in 1998 told the story of Professor Utonium (Tom Kane), a lonely man who sets about the task of creating three children (with science, naturally). He adds sugar, spice, and everything nice to his kid recipe, but accidentally also adds Chemical X — the result is Blossom (Cathy Cavadini), Buttercup (Elizabeth Daily), and Bubbles (Tara Strong), three girls with superpowers strong enough to keep their city safe.
The original, beloved series ran through 2005 and for 79 episodes. The show returned again in 2016 with a (mostly) new cast. The characters proved to be popular again and the second series lasted over 100 episodes through 2019.
However, there is one space where the girls simply have not been able to find success thus far — live-action television. A pilot episode was created by Diablo Cody and Heather V. Regnier with a cast including Chloe Bennet, Dove Cameron, and Yana Perrault as the three superheroes, Donald Faison as Professor Utonium, and star of the classic film "Teen Witch" Robyn Lively as Sara Bellum.
There was just one problem — people were aggressively not into the concept. The new series, dubbed simply, "Powerpuff" was set to be about three disillusioned twenty-something former heroes struggling to deal with the youth they lost to superheroics.
Mark Pedowitz, CEO and chairman of The CW, publicly called the more mature pilot a "miss" while speaking with The Hollywood Reporter. He confirmed that they were taking the series back to the drawing board. Unfortunately, in the interim, the would-be show has lost one of its core cast members — Chloe Bennet.
Why Chloe Bennet is really leaving Powerpuff
"Powerpuff" entered development back in August 2020 and was filmed from April 7 through April 16. There was fan backlash shortly after filming was completed. Pictures of the three lead actresses in the classic Powerpuff Girls outfits leaked in May and were met with a largely negative response. Around the same time, a supposed (but unconfirmed) series of script pages surfaced on Twitter, featuring jokes about leaking nudes, being a "fancy slut," and "triggering."
When asked about the supposed leaked pages, Pedowitz claimed to not have seen the pages or what they contained. Regardless, it's no surprise given the bad press that the series went back to square one.
All that being said, it seems that the reason Chloe Bennet has departed the series after signing on to play Blossom has nothing to do with the sour response to the leaked pilot details. According to a report from Variety, Warner Bros. Television sought to extend Bennet's attachment to the series while they retooled, but it was a scheduling conflict that caused her to ultimately move on.
As of now, there is no news on who will replace Bennet as the Powerpuff Girls leader beyond the intention to recast in the fall. "This is a powerful property, it has engaged a lot of interest, and we want to get it right before we put it out," Pedowitz said in May, so, at least as of now, it seems the intention is to still move forward without Bennet.