The Big Picture
- Sam, Clover, and Alex return in a live-action version of Totally Spies, battling supervillains and navigating college life.
- Will Ferrell’s Gloria Sanchez Productions spotlights girl-power themes in the upcoming co-production with Amazon and Banijay Kids & Family.
- The reboot of the long-running animated series will bring back the trio of super-spies with a focus on empowerment and friendship.
Get ready to WOOHP it up. With its return for a much-belated seventh season imminent, long-running animated series Totally Spies is making the jump to live-action. Will Ferrell is producing a live-action remake of the action comedy series about a trio of teenage super-spies. Variety reports that Amazon MGM Studios have the reboot in the works.
The YA series will focus on the show’s central trio of Sam, Clover, and Alex as they juggle their first year of college with their glamorous adventures battling outlandish supervillains. It will be a co-production between Amazon and Banijay Kids & Family, the latter of which is the French production company that first launched Totally Spies over twenty years ago. The series will be produced by Ferrell’s Gloria Sanchez Productions, a production company founded to spotlight female-led stories; its previous productions include Booksmart, Hustlers, and May December. Says Gloria Sanchez president Jessica Elbaum, “Gloria Sanchez was originally founded to tell stories about complicated characters and empower female voices and storytellers. As longtime fans of the animated show, we couldn’t think of a story more fitting to our ethos. The themes of girl-power, never sacrificing friendship, fun, or your true self to be successful resonated with us then, and feel ripe to revisit now.”
What is ‘Totally Spies’?
A co-production between Canada and France, Totally Spies premiered in 2002 on ABY Family, later moving to Cartoon Network. It centers around three teenage girls from Beverly Hills, California who moonlight as jumpsuited super-spies; the cool-headed Sam (Jennifer Hale), the absent-minded Clover (Andrea Taylor), and the kind-hearted Alex (Katie Leigh, and later Katie Griffin). The three are members of WOOHP (World Organization of Human Protection), a spy organization led by the crusty British spymaster Jerry (Jess Harnell), and travel the world battling bizarre villains – even as they contend with their snooty rival Mandy (Hale) in their civilian lives. The series ended in 2015 after six seasons and over 150 episodes; it also spawned a theatrically-released prequel movie and a spinoff series, The Amazing Spiez, which lasted two seasons. Last year, a seventh season continuing the series (albeit without the original voice cast) was announced. It has already aired in France, and will premiere in North America later this year. It has already been renewed for an eighth season.
Ferrell and Elbaum will executive produce the series via Gloria Sanchez Productions, as will Alix Taylor. Banijay Kids & Family CEO Benoît Di Sabatino will also executive produce the series.
Watch on Prime Video
Amazon’s live-action Totally Spies reboot has not yet set a creative team or a release date. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
