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Spoon! Amazon orders pilot for live-action The Tick reboot

Chris3123

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Yes, it's a reboot, not a continuation of the old FOX show. All new cast. But the original creator of the two previous shows is on board, so it should still be good.

EXCLUSIVE: Cult live-action comedy The Tick is making a comeback. Amazon has ordered a pilot for a new take on Ben Edlund‘s comic book character with an all-new cast. Edlund, who created the 2001 live-action Fox comedy as well as the 1994 animated series, is back as writer and executive producer as is fellow original exec producer Barry Josephson. Griffin Newman (Vinyl) is set to play Arthur Everest, and Valorie Curry (House of Lies, The Following) has been cast as his sister Dot Everest in the pilot, I have learned. Transcendence helmer Wally Pfister is in negotiations to direct. Sony Pictures TV, the studio behind the 2001 series, is producing.

And a bit of the plot:

In the new incarnation, the blue suit-wearing Tick is recovering from a memory loss. He ends up re-teaming with Arthur to fight evil. Newman’s Arthur, played in the Fox series by David Burke, had been labeled as a schizophrenic because of his statements that evil plans to rule the city, and no one believes him until he runs into Tick. Curry’s Dot Everest is a nurse who loves her brother Arthur to death and worries about him.

Deadline

The article also says casting is underway for the big blue guy himself. Let's hope they get someone who can do the role justice.
 
Yes, it's a reboot, not a continuation of the old FOX show. All new cast. But the original creator of the two previous shows is on board, so it should still be good.

That's good. The live-action sitcom was lame except for the episodes Ben Edlund wrote. Those were the only ones that really made use of superhero tropes and concepts as a basis for humor. The others were just Seinfeld knockoff plots about losers sitting around talking about sex, but with the losers happening to wear superhero suits while they did so. So giving Edlund another shot where he's solely in charge should turn out better.

The article also says casting is underway for the big blue guy himself. Let's hope they get someone who can do the role justice.

Oh, I thought I'd read that Patrick Warburton would be returning as the Tick, while everyone else was recast/rebooted around him. Hard to imagine anyone else playing the character, even though he was the second actor in the role (Townsend Coleman -- the voice of Michaelangelo in the '80s Ninja Turtles cartoon -- was the Tick in animation.)
 
Oh, I thought I'd read that Patrick Warburton would be returning as the Tick, while everyone else was recast/rebooted around him.

Yep, that's what was originaly reported. But according to this article those plans have changed. Might have something to do with Warburton being busy with his new show Crowded.
 
I enjoyed the first live action series, so I'm pretty curious about this. I've never read the comics, or seen the animated series, so I'm not sure what to expect if this is closer to them.
 
I enjoyed the cartoon the most but was a fan of the live action show and was quite disappointed when they canceled it. Glad to hear it's coming back.
 
Technically it isn't coming back. From everything I've heard, it's going to be a totally separate show.
 
I got that from the first four words of the thread. I was saying I'm glad the character is being featured on a new show again.
 
The Tick has been cast. It's Peter Serafinowicz from Guardians of the Galaxy.

http://comicsalliance.com/amazon-tick-peter-serafinowicz/

Apparently Patrick Warburton is on board as an executive producer, at least.

Ooh, you know what could be cool? Remember that episode of the animated series, "The Tick vs. the Tick," where our hero clashed with another superhero also calling himself The Tick (and wearing a more accurately tick-like costume) and challenging Big Blue for the right to use the name? (Heck, you don't need to remember, because here it is on YouTube.) It'd be funny if they did a remake of that story with Warburton guest-starring as the other Tick. Also, that would be a cool episode to adapt because it gave us The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight.
 
Ooooo, boy! Can't wait.
And:
Tick: Everybody was a baby once, Arthur. Oh, sure, maybe not today, or even yesterday. But once. Babies, chum: tiny, dimpled, fleshy mirrors of our us-ness, that we parents hurl into the future, like leathery footballs of hope. And you've got to get a good spiral on that baby, or evil will make an interception.
 
Wow, that's weird casting. I'll give it a shot, but my first reaction is that is not at all the type of guy I'd get to play the Tick.
 
The Tick wasn't really goofy, he was serious, though the things he said were unique with his point of view. Though I liked Patrick Warburton, he looked more like The Tick than how The Tick acted. I think Peter Serafinowicz can pull the "For Justice" attitude better.
 
The Tick wasn't really goofy, he was serious, though the things he said were unique with his point of view.

Well, he was serious in the way Adam West's Batman was serious -- incredibly earnest and laser-focused on his mission, but ramped up to a comical extreme. Although the Tick is much, much dumber.
 
From Ben Edlund at Entertainment Weekly:

"We've got this show about superheroes [where] we get to have fun with the idea of superheroes by starting with kind of a comedic parody of [an] event-oriented-like universe," creator Ben Edlund said. The Tick will be "darker and more grounded," with a "real story, a real hero's myth."

Mmmm hero story and myth, fine. Darker, more grounded... Perhaps somewhat against the grain of the subject matter? I'm not au fait with the comic, but I recall the cartoon and series being more like Adam West's Batman than Chris Nolan's.

But it is still Ben Edlund and it's his property so a new take maybe just as good. Wonder if there will be a mental health side to the Tick, a la modern runs of Moon Knight?

Hugo - spooon?
 
My problem with the previous live-action sitcom was that it was too grounded -- in that it hardly ever dealt with superheroics but was mostly just Seinfeld in superhero costumes. Although the episodes that Edlund himself wrote were the exceptions, drawing their humor from the actual potential and problems of superheroics and supervillainy, rather than just relying on cliched sitcom tropes and dressing them up with Spandex. So as long as Edlund's the one doing the writing, I'm sure this new show will be funnier and more imaginative than the bulk of its predecessor.
 
So, are they going to switch around the other hero identities like they did with the last live action, or keep them the same? For example, Die Fledermaus became Batmanuel, and American Maid became Captain Liberty. Never did understand why they did that.
 
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