What Is Up With The POWERPUFF Girls "Leaked" Script?

The Powerfluff Piece Of "News"

(James Acomb / The CW)

As some may or may not know, a live-action Powerpuff Girls show is in the works at The CW under the name "Powerpuff," [1] starring Chloe Bennet as Blossom, Dove Cameron as Bubbles, and Yana Perrault as Buttercup [2]. Announced on August 24, 2020, by Variety - the Pilot order featured Diablo Cody and Heather Regnier as co-writers and producers of the show, along with Berlanti Productions, while Maggie Kiley direct. The synopsis from the announcement read: "the titular superheroes are now disillusioned twentysomethings who resent having lost their childhood to crime-fighting. Will they agree to reunite now that the world needs them more than ever?" [1] In an update seven months later, the character descriptions were released as the following [3]:

Blossom (Bennet) was a spunky, conscientious, Little-Miss-Perfect child who holds several advanced degrees, but her repressed kiddie-superhero trauma has left her feeling anxious and reclusive, as she aims to become a leader again - this time on her own terms.

Bubbles (Cameron) had a sweet-girl disposition that won America's hearts as a child. She still sparkles as an adult, but her charming exterior belies an unexpected toughness and wit. She's initially more interested in recapturing her fame than saving the world, but she just might surprise us and herself.

Buttercup (Perrault) was the rebellious badass of The Powerpuff Girls in its heyday. More sensitive than her tough exterior suggests, she has spent her adulthood trying to shed her Powerpuff Girl identity and live an anonymous life.

 

Powerpuff Director's Chair (Maggie Kiley)

Director Maggie Kiley posted to Instagram confirming filming had begun April 7 [4]. Behind-The-Scenes images and videos shortly surfaced online while Powerpuff's Pilot was shooting - courteous of Backgrid - showing off their costumes [5]. Variety quickly reported that "the characters only wear the costumes in flashbacks to their teenage years. The Pilot will focus on the girls as adults, as seen in the first-look image." [3] Fast-forward to May 24, 2021: Variety briefly mentions that The CW "has decided to re-work its pilot for "Powerpuff" and that "the network will film a new pilot for the series off-cycle." [6] The cast is still attached to the show - most likely due to contracts than anything else. The next day, The CW chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz stated [7]:

The reason you do pilots is [that] sometimes things miss, and this was just a miss. We believe in the cast completely. We believe in Diablo [Cody] and Heather [Regnier], the writers. We believe in the auspices of Greg Berlanti and Warner [Bros. TV] studios. In this case, the Pilot didn't work. But because we see there [are] enough elements in there, we wanted to give it another shot. So that's why we didn't want to go forward with what we had. Tonally, it might've felt a little too campy. It didn't feel as rooted in reality as it might've felt. But again, you learn things when you test things out. And so in this case, we felt, let's take a step back and go back to the drawing board.

The Situation

Earlier this week, a user named "Kegels" leaked what most people believe to be the live-action Powerpuff Girls script online via ResetEra [8]. The now-deleted account posted the link around 2:23 PM AEST on Tuesday, only 2 minutes after Slayven re-posted an article about the series re-work. Kegels later editing their messages after 2-hours, removing the link. Variety published the original article around 4 AM AEST, leaving ten or so hours for Kegels to potentially write a 60-page fake Powerpuff Grils script and search for a place to link it online.

I was fortunate enough to download the script for "The Powerpuff Girls" while their message was still live - it said: "If it's getting re-worked I'll post the script so people can read what it was beforehand, I talked about what was happening in the draft I had before, it started interesting but kinda petered out imo." (I think I remember two links in the message, but I am not 100% sure. So, I can't comment on that - I will only refer to the download link for the script.)

Edited Post & Reply (ResetEra)

The message suggests they knew or were even a part of the production of the Pilot, in which they acquired an older script. However, when researching their interaction on ResetEra, no evidence could suggest they were ever, or are, in the Film/TV industry. Simply search "Kegels ResetEra" or "Deleted member 52442 ResetEra" on Google to find their interactions. Here is a link to a site that compiled a few posts that got him banned on ResetEra - which I found after a quick Google:

https://resetera.kiwifarms.net/search/actioned?u=Kegels

Comparing The Scripts

Heather V. Regnier

Screenshots shared by Regnier of the Sleepy Hollow 315 script show how they format a script with frequent underlined words and phrases that hold significance; describes scenes in detail with dialogue and character cues; as well as "continued" at the top and bottom of each page [9], [10]. So, it seems evident to me that Regnier, at least, did not format or physically write the script.

Diablo Cody

Cody has a lot more available work online than Regnier. However, after researching, I found their cover pages have a lot of variation, making that aspect of the scripts hard to compare. Cody also consistently details scenes, and four out of five available scripts featured musical cues. They always finish with the end at the right corner.

The "Script"

The leaked script dated February 9 is titled "The Powerpuff Girls," which seems odd, considering the show is titled Powerpuff. Additionally, the cover page marked "Network Revision" strangely lacks asterisks (*) marking the script revisions. There is also no legal or copyright blurb at the bottom of the cover page, leaving me suspect. It also has a habit of underlining every location, while neither Regnier, Cody, or other CW scripts do. What it does have in common with other CW scripts is how it punctuates the start and end of each Act and finishes the script with the end line centred and underlined.

While Cody has not previously marked out their acts and centred their ending line, it could be something added just for The CW way of formating scripts since it is so common in their other productions. I don't have enough material from Regnier to know whether adding the acts is something they do - but as I said before, it's typical of CW productions.

In Summary

Going over this situation, I believe the "leaked" Powerpuff Girls script is fake. The incorrect title - "The Powerpuff Girls" instead of the previously announced "Powerpuff." The lack of more substantial formatting overlaps with the writers Diablo Cody and Heather V. Regnier. A "Network Revision" devoid of any script revisions marked by asterisks (*). Additionally, the official character descriptions and synopsis do not match the presented material. Lastly, Kegels lacks credibility from his ResetEra posts - a one-off script leak from an account with no previous history about the production of tv or film or leaked content and conveniently leaked after the announcement of the pilot re-work.

The decision is down to you. I have laid out all the information that I can, and it's you who decides if it's fake or not until officially proven otherwise. I, personally, lean towards it all being fake. But, I suggest doing your research - look up Diablo Cody and Heather Regnier's scripts and compare them to this leaked script.

Let me know what you think here or on Twitter @AfterHoursMedYT!