James Gunn has achieved a celebrity status that many filmmakers will never gain. He has become a mainstay for many comic book movie fans with his massive success with Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, DC's TheSuicide Squad, and now with his HBOMax series, Peacemaker.
However, his mainstream success did not begin with superhero franchises. James Gunn has stated himself that what took him from "just another screenwriter to a guy with a hit," to the star he is today was his live-action films, Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo: Monsters Unleashed. Although both films were not very sought after by critics at the time, or by Warner Brothers for that matter, they have gained a cult following from the mid-twenty-year-old generation that have grown up with the movies.
Scooby-Doo has been a cartoon superstar since its creation in 1969 with the Hanna Barbera cartoons by creators Joe Ruby and Ken Spears with their CBS cartoon series, Scooby-Doo: Where Are You? Since then, Scooby and the rest of the Mystery Inc. Gang have gone through many reincarnations and reboots, from other cartoon shows, animated movies, and live-action films in the case of James Gunn's Scooby-Doo.
Although James Gunn's written and produced Scooby-Doo films were internationally commercially successful, they were both critically panned causing Warner Brothers to move on from his live-action versions of Scooby. In fact, this stopped Gunn from being able to move forward with the third installment. But, if one were to look at the box office and streaming services today, they would notice the onslaught of reboots, sequels, and prequels. Meaning it's never too late for James Gunn to make his third installment, and now would be the perfect time for it to happen.
Just this past year we got a new Scream that brought back the original cast for all fans to gush about on-screen, a new Spider-Man movie that brought back old villains and heroes from the early and mid-two-thousands films like Doc Ock and Green Goblin. These call-back characters even draw in the same age group as the Gunn Scooby-Doo movies.
Hollywood is trending with reboots, sequels, and prequels of movies made during the beginning of the new millennium with theaters seeing an influx of twenty-year-old nostalgia that is making billions of dollars right now. That age group is turning into adults with their own disposable income, and they are clamoring for a scratch to calm that nostalgia itch from when life wasn't about bills and work, just what movie they were going to watch next. This same age group has created a cult following for Gunn's Scooby-Doo films and James Gunn's other work with Marvel and DC, making this an almost perfectly opportune moment for a reboot to happen. Especially with new trends of studios using their own streaming features to showcase their in-house films and shows.
HBO has especially found new success with its streaming service, HBOMax, using it as a vehicle for its latest and biggest projects like Dune and Euphoria. James Gunn has used the platform for his latest projects The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker after his previous Marvel departure. This would be the perfect blueprint for James Gunn and Warner Brothers to pick up where they left off years ago with the canceled Scooby-Doo threequel.
The Warner Brother's Scooby-Doo show had previously found massive success with the seriality of the weekly new monster, this would borrow itself easily to a live-action show in the same vein as the first season of The Mandalorian on Disney Plus, with every episode being a new adventure but still all being tied together into an overall story. A Scooby-Doo live-action reboot can easily take many forms, from another movie or a whole new show completely.
Like most comic book movies and shows, there are near endless sources of material to use for the gang, with many of the original monsters having yet to be used and even more modern incarnations not yet seeing the live-action trend. The late nineties to mid-two-thousands Scooby films Scooby-Doo: Zombie Island and Scooby-Doo: Alien Invaders would be perfect reboot options for the age range of the cult following James Gunn has created, and their tone could easily fit with what James Gunn has already done with the franchise, leaning towards actual monsters and slightly older jokes. They had even released around the same time that Gunn's films were being released on the silver screen, sharing the same audience and generation.
Although James Gunn has shown appreciation for his past with Scooby-Doo for bringing him where he is now, he hasn't come right out and said he would want to make a reboot--leaning towards wanting to make more DC series for HBOMax. But many others have expressed a want for the live-action gang to return, especially Shaggy himself! Matthew Lillard's enthusiasm for the idea caused even more people to jump on board for a reboot.
While only time will tell whether Gunn would want to reboot the films, the time would be now to do it. With Gunn's affiliation again with HBO and Warner Brothers, the popularity of twenty-year-old nostalgia, the upward trend towards long-form storytelling on platforms like HBOMax, there could be no more perfect timing for Gunn to explore what he wanted to do nearly two decades ago with a Scooby-Doo reboot.