Nathan Filion Reveals ‘Firefly’ Revival Being Developed as an Animated Series

Now it can be revealed: “Firefly” is indeed coming back, sorta. Star Nathan Fillion, who had been teasing some sort of revival of the cult hit series — which lasted less than one season, and then returned as a movie — will be an animated show.

According to Deadline, which broke the news, Marc Guggenheim and Tara Butters will serve as showrunners, and the show will take place between the TV show (which ran in 2002) and the 2005 feature “Serenity.” Animation studio ShadowMachine is handling the visuals. Fillion’s Collision33 is developing with 20th Television Animation.

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Fillion was set to share the news at the AwesomeCon event in Washington, D.C., and also detail the news on the “Once We Were Spacemen” podcast, which he and co-star Alan Tudyk (Hoban “Wash” Washburne) launched in November.

In cryptic social media videos last week with co-stars Gina Torres (Zoë Washburne), Morena Baccarin (Inara Serra), Sean Maher (Dr. Simon Tam), Summer Glau (River Tam), Jewel Staite (Kaylee Frye) and Adam Baldwin (Jayne Cobb), Fillion had hinted that something was afoot.

Set 500 years into the future during a global civil war, “Firefly” charted the whereabouts of spaceship Serenity and its nine crew members in the year 2517. It blossomed into a cult phenomenon after its 2002 premiere.

Fox cancelled the show after 11 episodes largely because of low ratings. It its original review, Variety wrote of “Firefly,” “cheeky and charming, Joss Whedon’s attempt to fuse oaters with “Star Trek” is just silly enough to work — and there’s absolutely nothing else like it on TV.”

More to come