André Lauren Benjamin, more commonly known as rapper-singer André 3000, will return to the perennial Scooby-Doo franchise in Netflix’s upcoming Scooby-Doo: Origins series, Deadline reports. As one half of legendary hip-hop duo Outkast, Benjamin previously helped create “Land of a Million Drums,” a song which featured on Scooby and the gang’s 2002 live-action film.
Announced alongside Benjamin for Origins was veteran actress Cathy Moriarty (Raging Bull, Law and Order); while the specifics are unclear, Netflix clarified that both stars will feature in recurring roles throughout the series. Playing the roles of Mystery Incorporated are McKenna Grace (Crash and Bernstein, Scream VII) as Daphne Blake, Tanner Hagen (The Pitt, Lawmen: Bass Reeves) as Shaggy Rogers, Abby Ryder Fortson (Transparent, Ant-Man) as Velma Dinkley, and Maxwell Jenkins (Lost in Space, A Family Man) as Fred Jones. Frank Welker, meanwhile, will reprise his role as the voice of the titular mutt.
Scooby Doo: Origins follows a younger Mystery Incorporated gang as a series of bizarre circumstances draw them into a conspiracy under the surface of Camp Ruby-Spears. “In this modern reimagining,” the official announcement post reads, “old friends Shaggy and Daphne team up at summer camp with scientific townie Velma and the strange but handsome Fred to solve the mystery of a lonely lost Great Dane puppy — who may have witnessed a supernatural murder.”
Origins is far from the first Scooby-Doo property to establish a provenance for the sleuths of Mystery Incorporated, or even the first to do so in live-action — the 2009 made-for-TV movie Scooby-Doo: The Mystery Begins holds that title. Recent entries like 2020’s Scoob! and 2023’s Velma series have also tried their hand at reimagining the group’s dynamic, but were met with generally poor reception from longtime fans of the franchise for their deviations from the 1969 Hanna-Barbera original. As such, it seems safe to say that the gang’s recent crossovers with superheroes, stoners, and Simon Cowell will be overlooked as writers Josh Applebaum (Cowboy Bebop, Citadel) and Scott Rosenberg (Kangaroo Jack, Venom) seek to establish a baseline for newcomers.
Netflix’s Scooby-Doo: Origins will premiere sometime in 2027, while the original Scooby-Doo: Where Are You? cartoon is streaming now on Tubi.