MTV to Bring Back Aeon Flux in Live Action

[Deck Rickard]

'Aeon Flux' Live-Action TV Reboot Set at MTV

MTV is revisiting Aeon Flux.

The Viacom-owned cabler is developing a live-action reboot of the animated series that originally ran on the younger-skewing network for three seasons in 1990s.

Teen Wolf showrunner Jeff Davis is on board to pen the script and exec produce the drama alongside The Walking Dead's Gale Anne Hurd. Hurd, who was not attached to the original series, produced the 2005 feature film starring Charlize Theron.

The live-action series is set in a future dystopian state and revolves around a young assassin who teams with a group of biohacking rebels to save humanity as she becomes the hero known as Aeon Flux.

The original Aeon Flux first aired on MTV in 1991 as a six-part sequence of shorts that was featured in its Liquid Television experimental animation series. It returned in 1992 with five individual short-form episodes and again in 1995 as a 10-episode half-hour series, all of them animated. The series was originally created by animator Peter Chung.

Corporate sibling Paramount Pictures teamed with Lakeshore Entertainment and Hurd's Valhalla Motion Pictures banner for the Theron-led feature. Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi penned the feature, which was produced by MTV Films. Co-starring Frances McDormand, the film was a critical failure and box office bomb. Produced on a budget of $62 million, it grossed $52.3 million worldwide. The movie has an abysmal 9 percent rating among critics and 39 percent audience rating, while the MTV animated series registers an 89 percent among critics.

Aeon Flux becomes the latest MTV property to be mined from the cable network's library. Sources say the cable network is poised to launch a studio to help further monetize its library as part of Viacom's larger push to revitalize its cable brands.

Other MTV series to score revivals of late include Jersey Shore, Yo MTV Raps andTRL, with the cabler also in development on a Real World revival.

Davis was behind drama Teen Wolf, itself a reboot of the Michael J. Fox '80s feature. In 2016, Davis teamed with MTV for a take on War of the Worlds that is said to still be active, along with a new incarnation of Teen Wolf for the cabler. He's repped by WME and Jackoway Tyerman.

Reboots remain in high demand as broadcast, cable and streaming outlets look for proven IP in a bid to cut through a cluttered landscape quickly approaching 500 scripted originals. Having the original producers attached is key, with MTV standing to benefit from a potential library sale of the original series should the live-action take move forward. A formal announcement about MTV's studio is expected to come this week.

As an old school Aeon fanboy, I'd love to see this... provided they do a good job and not some garbage like the Theron movie. I feel like the technology is there to finally do Aeon justice in live action, but the involvement of MTV and Gale Anne Hurd has me worried. I don't have any problem with Hurd per se but the fact that she was involved with the lousy Theron movie gives me pause. As for MTV, I know they were the ones that used to run the animated series but that was a different MTV in those days, one that actually played music videos and had other cool shows like Beavis and Butthead and The Maxx. So... we'll see. I want to be optimistic but I think I'd feel a lot better if this was on another channel. I've heard Teen Wolf was pretty good though so maybe this will be too?

 

[terry78]

Jesus.