New ‘Tom and Jerry’ Show Coming After Movie’s Success

A new Tom and Jerry series is coming to HBO Max in less than a month, building on the success of the 2021 movie that premiered back in February. on Thursday, HBO Max announced Tom and Jerry in New York, which will use the same setting as the recent movie, but in an entirely animated style. The show premieres on Thursday, July 1.

Tom and Jerry in New York finds the arch-rivals both living in the Royal Gate Hotel, though it looks like their adventures will take them beyond its walls and all over the city. While Tom and Jerry was a hybrid of CGI, animation and live-action, this show will be entirely animated by Renegade Studios — which has handled many Tom and Jerry productions in recent years. So far all we have gotten is a poster, so it’s not clear how many episodes there will be or whether they will be released weekly.

This new Max Original series will be directed entirely by Darrell Van Citters, who will produce alongside Ashley Postlewaite for Renegade. Sam Register is also executive producing on behalf of Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios.

Tom and Jerry have remained iconic since their creation in the 1940s, though in recent years they have undergone more and more changes in order to stay relevant. The duo made perhaps their biggest transformation in February when their new movie premiered on HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously. The Royal Gate Hotel was introduced there, and it looks like the new show will establish some sort of continuity by returning to that location.

The official description from Warner Bros. calls this show an “adventure comedy” where the titular characters will “unleash mayhem across the big city, inciting hilarious chaos uptown, downtown and everywhere their manic escapades take them.” The studio is undoubtedly hoping to capitalize on the momentum of the movie, which earned over $118 million at the box office — an excellent return considering the timing with COVID-19 vaccines.

The new show will join dozens of older episodes on the HBO Max catalog. There are four seasons of Tom and Jerry there already, all from the show’s original run. It would go on to be revived and rebooted several times — most recently in 2014, when it got 117 new episodes as The Tom and Jerry Show. These iterations are not on HBO Max, however.

For the young audience this franchise targets, the connection to the movie is likely to be more important anyway. Tom and Jerry in New York premieres on Thursday, July 1 on HBO Max.