SilverHawks, an ’80s animated action-comedy made by the people behind ThunderCats, is getting rebooted. Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment created the former following the popularity of ThunderCats, a beloved cartoon and comic book franchise about a team of alien heroes. SilverHawks isn’t technically a spinoff of its better-known counterpart as it follows a new group of semi-human crime fighters elsewhere in space and further into the future.
A Silverhawks reboot is currently in development, according to Deadline. The project is spearheaded by The Nacelle Company, which has been involved in the production and distribution of unscripted series including Down To Earth with Zac Efron, The Movies That Made Us, and The Toys That Made Us, as well as scripted shows like Kevin Hart’s Guide To Black History and Here’s Johnny. Nacelle has worked with every major streaming platform, so the reboot could end up anywhere. An anticipated release date for the series has yet to be announced.
The reboot is accompanied by a new line of SilverHawks action figures to be released later this year by the toy company, Super7. Super7 recently gained the rights to the intellectual property and has partnered with Nacelle on the series. SilverHawks never experienced the same success as the ThunderCats franchise back in the ’80s, and its cancellation forestalled the possibility of a shared universe. A semi-live-action ThunderCats movie is currently in the works from Godzilla vs. Kong director, Adam Wingard, but the projects are not associated.
The 1986 version of SilverHawks takes the Thundercats model and re-sets its story in outer space. A squad of technologically enhanced, “partly metal, partly real” good guys are commissioned to take down an interplanetary criminal organization. The team of bird-like companions is voiced by a number of cast members from Thundercats.