After several weeks of cryptic videos where Nathan Fillion visited each of his Firefly co-stars, leading to much speculation whether the series was being revived or simply having to do with Fillion and Alan Tudyk’s podcast Once We Were Spacemen, it has been confirmed Firefly is indeed coming back though not in the way fans might have expected.
During his appearance at Awesome Con this morning, Fillion revealed an animated Firefly series is in development from Marc Guggenheim (Arrow) and Tara Butters (Agent Carter). Fillion, Gina Torres, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau, Sean Maher and Jewel Staite will reprise their iconic roles as Mal Reynolds, Zoë Washburne, Inara Serra, Jayne Cobb, River and Simon Tam and Kaylee Frye respectively. A piece of concept art of the characters in their animated forms was also shown during the panel.
“The dedication of Firefly fans has kept this 25-year-old show relevant. Clearly, the return of Firefly is something the fans want. More importantly, it’s something they deserve,” said Fillion, who will produce through his company Collision33 with 20th Century Fox. Guggenheim and Butters will serve as showrunners and have written the pilot.
Firefly was originally created by Joss Whedon and only ran for one season on Fox after a butchered scheduling process on the network and lackluster promotion. Despite that, the series gained a strong cult following during and after its run, enough so for Fox and Universal to make the feature film Serenity which tied some of the remaining story threads off. The series also starred Tudyk and Ron Glass as Hoban ‘Wash’ Washburne and Shepherd Book.
Glass passed away in 2016 and Tudyk was not announced to be involved in the animated series given Wash’s fate though with his work as a voice actor in several animated series and films in recent years he could appear as a new character.
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Originally published March 15, 2026. Updated March 16, 2026.
