Spoon! With a mighty battle cry, The Tick is being revived on Amazon. Deadline reports that Amazon ordered the pilot from Ben Edlund.
Edlund created The Tick in 1986 as a newsletter mascot for comic book stores in the Boston area. Then in 1994 The Tick first graced the small screen as an animated series. The animated series ran for 2 season, a total of 36 episodes, and then was resurrected in 2001 as a live action series on FOX. The live action version of The Tick only lasted a short-lived 9 episodes, but has since achieved the coveted status of “cult classic”
Two characters have already been cast in the upcoming pilot. Griffin Newman (Vinyl) has been cast as Arthur Everest, and Valorie Curry (House of Lies) will play Dot Everest, Arthur’s sister. Sony Pictures, which also produced the 2001 live action series, will also produce the upcoming pilot.
Patrick Warburton, who played the blue arachnid-superhero in Fox’s 2001 live action series, will not reprise his role as The Tick but will still have a hand in the upcoming project as an executive producer. Warburton is currently starring in the NBC comedy Crowded which is set to premiere this month.
The Tick is a parody of traditional comic book heroes. He has no memory of his life before he became The Tick, which lends to his character being rather child-like, and in the upcoming pilot, he will be recovering from another memory loss. He will once again be reunited with his sidekick, Arthur (Newman), whose white moth suit looks a lot like a bunny. The Tick is joined by a cast of equally absurd heroes and villains, and Deadline teases potential new characters in the upcoming incarnation.
Talks of the revival began back in 2014 when Edlund announced the potential reboot at Amazon. Even among the slew of reboots and superhero series recently released or in the works, the pilot order comes as a pleasant surprise to fans of The Tick.
No word has been released yet on when we might expect to see the pilot premiere or who might play The Tick, but casting is currently underway.