More Futurama Is Coming (In Some Form)

Something is brewing regarding Futurama, with the show’s creator telling fans to keep their eyes peeled for news about this project coming later in the summer. No specifics could be offered about this pending news, so fans can only speculate about what he means.

In its original incarnation, Futurama was a half-hour animated science-fiction show about a simple-minded pizza delivery boy named Fry who was accidentally cryogenically frozen and woke up in 31st Century New York, a world of sewer mutants, robot soap opera actors, hypnotoads, celebrity heads preserved in jars and hyper-chicken lawyers based on Matlock. The show ran from 1999 to 2003 on FOX, then was revived by Comedy Central in 2006 after a successful fan effort. Comedy Central pulled the plug on Futurama in 2013 and since then the show has been in limbo.

In a Reddit AMA, show co-creator David X. Cohen teased fans by promising some kind of news about some coming incarnation of Futurama, although he did clarify it isn’t a movie or TV show:

“There are no new TV episodes or movies in the pipeline at the moment… HOWEVER, here and now I promise a different avenue of exciting Futurama news later this summer, no kidding. Keep your expectations modest and you will be pleased, possibly. I am not allowed to say more or I will be lightly phasered.”

The last piece of Futurama-related material was a mobile game called Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow featuring the show’s original writers and voice actors. It was also reported last year that the show’s other creator Matt Groening is working on a new project for Netflix, but there is no indication at all that this has anything to do with Futurama or any of its characters (so you probably shouldn’t get our hopes up for that Everybody Loves Hypnotoad Netflix series).

With Cohen explicitly taking TV episodes and movies off the table (at least for now), the most likely means of keeping the show alive would seem to be games or some kind of short-form streaming content. In recent months a lot of shows and movies have been getting tie-in VR experiences, and Futurama would seem to be a natural for that kind of treatment given its rich world and many fun characters.

The good thing about Futurama is that the show’s writers and voice talent always seem to be onboard for anything the creators want to cook up, assuring that whatever form the experience takes, it’s always true to the show’s original quirky, imaginative spirit.



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