Cartoon Network have announced that they will be bringing Captain Planet to the big screen in a live action reimagining of the classic 90s cartoon. Transformers producers Don Murphy and Susan Montford are on board for the project, which looks like it could be the start of a new franchise.

Cartoons that people now in their mid-20s watched as kids are proving to be a seemingly irresistible resource for Hollywood at the moment, with series like the Transformers and X-Men films making obscene amounts of money. Whether Captain Planet and the Planeteers will enjoy similar success remains to be seen.

The original series was the brainchild of Ted Turner, founder of CNN and renowned supporter of the environment. It sat somewhere between child-friendly action adventure and what some have described as “enviro-fascist” propaganda. Looking back, maybe Captain Planet’s vision of rapacious capitalism as embodied by pollution-addicted super villains like Sly Sludge and Looten Plunger verged on brainwashing at times, but at least it stood for something, goddammit.

With films like Avatar pushing an emphatically eco-conscious agenda and breaking box office records at the same time, audiences may well be happy to embrace the green message. If the likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Meg Ryan and Martin Sheen, who all voiced characters in the cartoon, can be persuaded to get involved, that would definitely add to the appeal.

And, of course, it wouldn’t be the same without an appearance from Hitler:

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