Craig McCracken Reportedly Won’t Return for the New ‘The Powerpuff Girls’ Movie

Few Cartoon Network properties have had as long and strange a trip back to the spotlight as Townsville’s tiniest crime-fighters. ‘The Powerpuff Girls’ premiered in 1998 and ran for 6 seasons, wrapping in 2005. Since then, the franchise has spent years being revived, reimagined and, more often than not, scrapped.

The big-screen track record is a rocky one. ‘The Powerpuff Girls Movie’ was released in theaters on July 3, 2002, by Warner Bros. Pictures. It flopped, earning around 16 million USD against an 11 million USD budget.

Then came the live-action detour. News of a live-action series broke in August 2020, with Heather Regnier and Diablo Cody attached on the creative side and Greg Berlanti as an executive producer. In May 2023, it was confirmed the project would not move forward at The CW and had been returned to Warner Bros. TV.

Now, a fresh update has fans doing a double take. ComicBook.com shared on X that McCracken reportedly will not be involved with the upcoming ‘The Powerpuff Girls’ movie. According to the post, executives asked the franchise’s creator to develop a pitch for a reboot, but it was ultimately rejected, and Warner Bros. will develop a new take on the franchise instead. The report is credited to Allan Neuwirth’s Makin’ Toons Podcast.

To understand why that stings, it helps to look at how the movie came together. The new film was announced during Warner Bros. Animation’s presentation at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, marking the franchise’s first theatrical return since 2002. Deadline reported that Warner Bros. is in negotiations to acquire the rights to develop the feature, which was teased at CinemaCon and again at Annecy.

Details remain scarce. Warner Bros. has not announced a release date, director or casting details for the new feature. That leaves the creative direction wide open, and a reported absence of the franchise’s original voice makes the blank slate feel even bigger.

McCracken, meanwhile, has not exactly been away from Townsville. Cartoon Brew noted he recently returned to the franchise to develop an animated reboot for Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe. In July 2024, he clarified that the project was still in development and not in production, and explained the difference.

That makes the timing of this report all the more curious. Two Powerpuff projects now appear to be moving on separate tracks at Warner Bros., one with its creator and one reportedly without him. Even before the Makin’ Toons claim surfaced, ComicBook.com had pointed out it wasn’t clear whether McCracken would have any influence on the new movie.

It wouldn’t be the first time the franchise has moved forward without him. He was not involved in the live-action series, though he did express curiosity about the darker version. Still, a theatrical film is a far bigger swing, and fans tend to care deeply about who steers a property they grew up with.

Of course, all of this remains reportedly just that. Warner Bros. has not publicly addressed the claim, and the project is still early in development. Whether the studio can crack the code that eluded the 2002 film will be the real test.

For now, the Powerpuff faithful are left waiting on a director, a cast and a release date. Until then, the biggest question hanging over Townsville is whether a Powerpuff movie without its creator can still feel like the real thing.