Warner Bros.’ animated origin story Scoob! took a lot of people by surprise last year, offering up a pretty enjoyable adventure featuring the titular dog.
The $90 million pic was slated to hit theaters in May 2020, but found itself being pulled from the schedule altogether when COVID-19 brought the entire planet to a standstill. To try and recoup their losses, WB sent Scoob! straight to VOD on the originally intended big screen release date, which actually turned out to be a shrewd move as it reportedly brought in over $40 million in digital sales in its first three days.
In fact, Scoob! was the third most popular PVOD title of the pandemic era behind only Disney Plus Premier Access exclusive Mulan and Trolls World Tour, with analysts estimating that it earned close to $100 million in revenue before being added to the HBO Max library in June.
When you factor in the $26 million the animated feature generated from a limited international rollout, it looks to have been a profitable venture in the long run, so it’s no surprise that director Tony Cervone revealed in a new interview that a sequel is in early development.
“Actually, we are kicking the tires on a follow-up to Scoob!. It hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s something we’re all excited about. The whole creative team that made the first movie is still around and back and working on something new. It was neat to create this Hanna-Barbera Cinematic Universe, and it’s exciting to return to it.”
Reviews weren’t particularly kind, with Scoob! holding a mediocre Rotten Tomatoes score of 47% and audience rating of 54%, but the power of nostalgia coupled with a star-studded voice cast and the ability to entertain a young audience should never be discounted. And now that the origins of Mystery Inc. are out of the way, a second installment is free to move forward and embrace even more aspects of the mythology that have seen the title character endure as a firm favorite for over 50 years.