Elizabeth Banks Is Bringing Back ‘The Flintstones’ As An Animated Sequel Series That Catches Up With Them When They’re Older

The revival/reboot/belated sequel train has finally come for The Flintstones. Animation’s first prime time show has mostly laid dormant for a while. The last time it was plundered for the big and small screen was for two live-action movies in the ‘90s and early aughts, one starring John Goodman and Rick Moranis as Fred and Barney, the other with The Full Monty’s Mark Addy and lesser Baldwin brother Stephen. (A Seth MacFarlane reboot from a decade ago never came to fruition.) But now it’s coming back, not as a movie but as an animated series. And it’s all thanks to Elizabeth Banks.

The actress, director, and producer was recently announced as the director of a film called Cocaine Bear, which sounds genuinely very interesting. But she’ll find some time to bring back the prehistoric family with Bedrock, which has been picked up as a mash-up between Warner Bros. and Fox. And it won’t be a simple reboot. Instead it’s a sequel, set a bit of time after the original show, which began in 1960. Here is how Deadline describes it:

Bedrock will follow the Flintstone family two decades after the original, with Fred on the brink of retirement and 20-something Pebbles embarking on her own career. As the Stone Age gives way to a shiny and enlightened new Bronze Age, the residents of Bedrock will find this evolution harder than a swing from Bamm-Bamm’s club.

So you’ll get to see an older, grayer Fred Flinstone, as well as an all-grown-up Bamm-Bamm. Will Fred be all reactionary and against change — an Archie Bunker who’s now prejudiced against dinosaurs? Whatever happens, a Warner exec promised Deadline it would “rock,” then added, “sorry.”

(Via Deadline)