BoJack Horseman Creator Says No to Spinoffs But Would Dig an Opera

BoJack Horseman Creator Says No to Spinoffs But Would Dig an Opera

Netflix’s BoJack Horseman has come to an end after six successful seasons, leaving fans wondering whether the story could continue with another character. The show’s creator says that’s not going to happen, but he wants to see more shows that explore BoJack’s format in different ways. He’s also open to an opera.

“If someone wanted to do the BoJack Horseman opera, that might be interesting to me. That’s a different enough thing. But I think anything that tries to take place in the canon of the show or is an extension of the narrative of the show without completely reinterpreting it, I don’t think I would be very interested in personally,” creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg told Collider.

In an interview with Collider, Bob-Waksberg remarked on some fans wanting to see a BoJack Horseman spinoff series. For example, there has been interest around doing a series about Diane Nguyen (originally played by Alison Brie, although she’s recently expressed regret over playing a Vietnamese-American character since she’s a white actress). Bob-Waksberg said he’s been presented with ideas for BoJack spinoffs but has said no to them. Instead, he thinks it’d be more interesting to produce new shows that follow BoJack’s style or theme, albeit in different ways. Like Tuca & Bertie, which was cancelled at Netflix after one season but has been picked up by Adult Swim.

“I guess there have been conversations like, ‘Would you be interested in this?’ And my answer is, ‘No, I think we told a story with our characters, and perhaps there are more stories that could have been told with them, but that’s — we can leave that to everyone’s imagination,’” he said. “I think there’s more you could do with animal characters. There’s more you could do with Hollywood satire. There’s more themes that you could explore from the show. But I think an official spinoff, I don’t really see the point honestly. I feel like we told the story and we explored this world.”

However, Bob-Waksberg noted that it might not be up to him because Tornante TV owns the rights to BoJack Horseman. The way he put it: “They could decide, ‘We want to reboot this property with a hip, young, new creator,’ and so it goes.” That might sound far-fetched, but it’s been part of a rising trend lately of animated shows getting modern reboots — typically shows that were popular in the ‘90s, like Beavis & Butthead, The Ren and Stimpy Show, and the upcoming Daria spinoff Jodie. There’s also a modern-day Powerpuff Girls reboot in the works, although that will be live-action. One day a show like BoJack Horseman could be on the table too, but that probably wouldn’t happen right away.

Even with the rush of animated reboots, Bob-Waksberg is excited at all the attention adult animated shows have been getting recently. Part of that is because they’re easier to produce during the novel coronavirus pandemic, but another reason is because shows like BoJack Horseman, Rick and Morty, and the recent Star Trek: Lower Decks are pushing the envelope of what is considered valuable storytelling for animated shows. However, he does fear the potential consequences of this, in that it might attract bigger studios, actors, directors, or producers, which could wind up homogenizing a genre of television just starting to enter its own Golden Age.

“I’m also nervous that with all this attention on animation right now. Because it is producible, because it is a thing that people can do and work on, you’re going to lose a little bit of that nichiness or experimentation, or it’s going to become mainstream in a way that hurts it,” he said. “You’re going to have a lot of people with a lot of power, people who are used to having a lot of power based on their ideas, based on their success in live-action [movies and television], who now think they know what’s best for the world of animation.”

All six seasons of BoJack Horseman are currently available on Netflix.

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