--- title: 'ThunderCats Isn’t Dead, but Adam Wingard’s Update Has Fur on It' type: 'blog post' section: 'Away From Set' format: 'Editorial feature' standfirst: 'Adam Wingard says his ThunderCats movie still lives after another draft this year. The funny part: even the basic label, live-action or hybrid CGI, keeps slipping around.' author: 'Dorothy Kwan' published: '2026-09-01' updated: '2026-09-01' about_people: - 'Adam Wingard' tags: - 'Adam Wingard ThunderCats movie update' - 'ThunderCats live-action movie not dead' - 'Warner Bros ThunderCats animated film' - 'Simon Barrett ThunderCats script' - 'Adam Wingard Onslaught interview' sources: - 'https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/the-live-action-thundercats-movie-is-not-dead-director-says/ar-AA2bjFi9' - 'https://gizmodo.com/thundercats-movie-still-in-the-works-says-adam-wingard-2000805097' - 'https://comicbook.com/movies/news/two-years-later-the-live-action-thundercats-movie-finally-gets-a-major-update/' canonical: 'https://cinepixo.com/blog/thundercats-isnt-dead-but-adam-wingards-update-has-fur-on-it' publisher: 'CinePixo' --- # ThunderCats Isn’t Dead, but Adam Wingard’s Update Has Fur on It *Adam Wingard says his ThunderCats movie still lives after another draft this year. The funny part: even the basic label, live-action or hybrid CGI, keeps slipping around.* By Dorothy Kwan, 2026-09-01 · Away From Set Adam Wingard has put a pulse back under the fur suit. In a Polygon interview quoted by Gizmodo and ComicBook.com on August 31, 2026, the director said his ThunderCats movie is “not dead” and that he and Simon Barrett completed a new draft at the beginning of this year before Onslaught took over his schedule. Film readers should care because this is not a fresh green light. It is a survival notice for a Warner Bros. project first announced in 2021, one that keeps promising Lion-O without yet telling you when, or in exactly what form, he will arrive. ## Adam Wingard Says ThunderCats Still Lives Gizmodo reported that Wingard, out promoting Onslaught, told Polygon the project remains “still kicking around.” He said other jobs have taken precedence and that the issue now is finding time to return to it with full attention. There is your update: a draft happened early in 2026, Onslaught interrupted the process, and Wingard has no big shiny object to toss into the fan cage. He said plainly that ThunderCats lives, while also saying it is not his top job right now. That is news, but it is not the roar the headline machinery wants. It is more like a throat-clearing from a movie that has spent five years wandering the development hallway with a sword, a logo, and a lot of 1980s recognition value. ComicBook.com framed the comments as a major update after years of thin signals. Fair enough; “not dead” counts when silence has done most of the talking. But let’s not pretend this is a release date wearing whiskers. Wingard did not announce casting, production, a start date, or a finished script. ![Terry Crews, Adam Wingard and Margaret Qualley speaking at the 2017 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Death Note", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California.](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/09/94f1beac-c564-4821-9f66-74954e07d5f0.webp) *Photo: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America · [CC BY-SA 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0) · [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Terry_Crews,_Adam_Wingard_%26_Margaret_Qualley_(35748092920).jpg)* ## The Live-Action Label Already Has a Problem Here is the odd little hairball: ComicBook.com calls Wingard’s project live-action. Gizmodo’s account includes Wingard’s 2021 comments to Deadline, where he said he did not want to make ThunderCats live-action. He said he wanted a hybrid CGI film with a hyperreal look, something that would bridge cartoon and CGI while keeping the characters recognizably ThunderCats. So what are we buying here? Not certainty. We have a movie in development, attached to Wingard and Barrett, based on the 1980s animated series. We have Wingard’s stated distaste for a Cats-style problem, which, honestly, may be the sanest sentence ever spoken near a humanoid feline property. The reporting does not settle whether the current version has changed form since those 2021 comments. It does not say. Move on with that in your pocket. The point is not pedantry. “Live-action ThunderCats” sells one mental image: actors, bodies, costumes, maybe digital faces trying to make you accept Panthro before your coffee hits. “Hybrid CGI” sells another: a bet on style, technology, and tolerance. Those are different wagers. One has flesh. One has rendering time. ![Terry Crews, Adam Wingard and Margaret Qualley speaking at the 2017 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Death Note", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California.](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/09/85dec66e-643e-4cc9-8348-8dc640a145bf.webp) ![Adam Wingard speaking at the 2017 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Death Note", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California.](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/09/fa352bed-1d6e-49ef-a759-747d21f258d9.webp) *Photos: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America · [CC BY-SA 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0) · [source 1](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Terry_Crews,_Adam_Wingard_%26_Margaret_Qualley_(36006070871).jpg), [source 2](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adam_Wingard_(36006140511).jpg)* ## Five Years, Several Drafts, No Start Date Gizmodo reported that news of Wingard directing and co-writing ThunderCats broke in 2021, after his MonsterVerse work. The same outlet noted that Wingard said in 2024 that he and Barrett had finished a draft before Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire pulled him into production, and that they had returned to the script after that pause. Now the 2026 quote lands in almost the same posture: work happened, another movie got in the way, ThunderCats remains important but not first in line. If this sounds familiar, that is because the project has learned the language of the almost-happening. Hollywood loves this zone. A property can remain alive for years on verbs that do not cost much: developing, revisiting, re-engaging, prioritizing. You get the smell of motion without the bruises of production. The fans get hope. The studio keeps the old toy chest open. Nobody has to show the movie. Wingard’s specificity about the new draft matters. It gives the update some bone. A draft at the beginning of 2026 means the project did not simply sit in a drawer while nostalgia did push-ups. Still, a draft is not a set. A draft is paper with ambition and coffee rings. ![Adam Wingard, Margaret Qualley, Roy Lee, Nat Wolff, Keith Stanfield and Masi Oka speaking at the 2017 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Death Note", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California.](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/09/1a0aa2a6-9c2a-46ea-8e05-a12b3624c7a2.webp) ![Adam Wingard speaking at the 2017 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Death Note", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California.](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/09/f385c001-7c6d-4e14-b2f6-877fd8e50422.webp) *Photos: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America · [CC BY-SA 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0) · [source 1](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adam_Wingard,_Margaret_Qualley,_Roy_Lee,_Nat_Wolff,_Keith_Stanfield_%26_Masi_Oka_(35299453114).jpg), [source 2](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adam_Wingard_(36099804386).jpg)* ## Warner Bros. Has Another ThunderCats Tease in the Air Gizmodo reported that Warner Bros. teased an animated ThunderCats feature at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2026. Gizmodo also said it remains unclear whether that film and Wingard’s project are the same thing. That uncertainty is the whole movie business in miniature: one brand, multiple possible versions, none yet solid enough for the public to pin down. If Wingard’s film still follows his 2021 idea, the Annecy tease could fit. If Warner Bros. has a separate animated feature cooking, then ThunderCats may have two lives and no clear face. ComicBook.com also pointed to the recent box-office failure of Masters of the Universe as a reason the update carries weight for 1980s reboot-watchers. That comparison has limits. One property’s stumble does not kill another property by magic. But studios do pay attention when the old lunchbox brigade fails to buy tickets. This is where the false note creeps in. The branding sounds enormous: ThunderCats, Warner Bros., Wingard, 1980s fever, franchise memory. The actual announcement is skinny: the director says it lives, but not at the front of his desk. ## The Real News Is Survival, Not Speed The jolt here is not that ThunderCats suddenly charges toward theaters. It does not. The jolt is that Wingard will still attach his name to it in public after five years of delays, competing projects, and a separate Warner Bros. animation tease floating nearby. That matters because directors know when to let dead projects stay buried. Wingard did the opposite. He put a fresh date on script work and called the thing alive. You can be skeptical about the machinery and still see the spark. Wingard’s original pitch, as Gizmodo recounted from Deadline, did not sound like the usual reboot paste. He wanted the characters to keep their 1980s look and avoid the digital embarrassment that stalks every cat-person movie after Cats. That is a real choice, not just brand incense. But a choice needs a movie around it. Right now ThunderCats has a director, a co-writer, a recent draft, a studio history, and a public statement of survival. It does not have a production date. It does not have a release date. It does not even have a settled public description that can stop tripping over the words live-action and CGI. For now, Lion-O gets the strangest status in franchise Hollywood: alive, delayed, and still waiting for somebody to decide what kind of body he has. ## How this piece was made **Format:** Editorial feature ## In this piece - [Adam Wingard](https://cinepixo.com/people/adam-wingard) ## Sources - https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/the-live-action-thundercats-movie-is-not-dead-director-says/ar-AA2bjFi9 - https://gizmodo.com/thundercats-movie-still-in-the-works-says-adam-wingard-2000805097 - https://comicbook.com/movies/news/two-years-later-the-live-action-thundercats-movie-finally-gets-a-major-update/ Every factual claim above is drawn from these. The reading of them is ours. Source: https://cinepixo.com/blog/thundercats-isnt-dead-but-adam-wingards-update-has-fur-on-it Written for CinePixo. Nothing on this page is imported prose.