No less than two days after Shaggy himself Casey Kasem passed on does Warner Brothers announce a reboot of the Scooby-Doo franchise for the big screen, as revealed in an exclusive to Deadline. Back in 2002, Warners made a live-action version starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne, Freddie Prinze Jr as Fred, Matthew Lillard as Shaggy and as Linda Cardellini as Velma. It made over $268 million at the box office worldwide, and even got a sequel in 2004, although Monsters Unleashed did considerably less money than the first movie. Even though nothing is confirmed, the general consensus is that this version will be an all-CGI animated version this time.  Warner Bros. will be totally starting from scratch for this one, setting Randall Green to write a new screenplay. There are no other directing or acting attachments at the moment beyond original producer Charles Roven still being in the mix.
Even though it may seem “too soon” to reboot Scooby-Doo for us grown ups, since the last movie came out a mere ten years ago, there is a whole new crop of little kids who were born after those movies came out and have never seen them, and Warner Bros. is smart to give them their own version of Scooby Doo and Mystery Inc gang. Besides, in the decade or so since the last movie came out, Scooby-Doo has been rebooted no less than three of times on television — there was What’s New, Scooby Doo? from 2002-2006, Scooby and Shaggy Get A Clue from 2006-2008. and Scooby Doo: Mystery Inc. from 2010 till just last year. And that’s not counting all the straight-to-DVD movies that come out all the time featuring Scooby. Kids nowadays are used to seeing their favorite things rebooted all the time. Scooby products make a ton of money for Warner Bros., so they weren’t going to leave a Scooby movie on the shelf forever.
All I know is, I want Fred in an orange ascot, and totally “non-relevant to what’s happening on screen” Â songs playing while Scooby and the gang are being chased through some old house or something. Give me those two things and you’ve got my $12 bucks, Warner Bros.
I just really want them to move away from the supernatural stuff. The best thing about the old Scooby-Doo stories was the detective work unveiling fake magic and alien stories and looking deeper to find the logical answer.
I thought the Live-action Scooby Doo movies did a good job with Shaggy and Scooby but everything else about them was pretty terrible.