MTV Studios Rebooting ‘Daria’ With a Twist

The newly established MTV Studios is developing a reboot TV fans can all get behind, a revival of its hit animated series Daria. But there’s a twist.

MTV is reportedly ramping up production operations and starting to produce series for streaming services, specifically producing reboots, revivals and spinoffs from the network’s library of more than 200 titles, as well as new shows.

The new studio’s initial slate includes a re-imagining of the 1990s feminist series titled Daria & Jodie, Deadline reports.

The official synopsis for the new series, reportedly already being shopped to streamers, including Netflix and Hulu reads: “The iconic animated franchise is reinvented through the eyes of heroine Daria Morgendorffer and one of her closest friends Jodie Landon. These two smart young women take on the world, with their signature satirical voice while deconstructing popular culture, social classes, gender and race.”

The series comes from writer Grace Edwards, who previously worked on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Loosely Exactly Nicole and Inside Amy Schumer.

The studio is also developing an update to of the Emmy-winning coming-of-age unscripted series Made, as well as a live-action remake of MTV animated sci-fi series Aeon Flux, from Teen Wolf creator Jeff Davis. A return of fan-favorite reality series, The Real World is also reportedly in the works.

The move to create series for streaming platforms comes as younger demographics view most of their TV online.

“It’s better served for us to bring that out and look to partner with a SVOD (platform) because it’s where the audience is looking for that type of scripted (series),” MTV president Chris McCarthy told Deadline.

McCarthy also said MTV Studios is considering rebooting classic animated comedy, Beavis and Butthead a second time, after a short-lived revival on the network. This time the show would be aimed for a streaming service.

The creation of MTV Studios had reportedly been in the works for about a year, since McCarthy and head of programming Nina L. Diaz returned to MTV.

“One of the big things that Nina and I wanted to do when we came back was to really move back into a Build Model and away from a Buy Model,” McCarthy said.

The studio will reportedly focus on producing series based on MTV’s repertoire of past hit shows.

“I think it’ll eventually shift to a more of a 50-50 and hopefully to a 40-60. But, I think in the beginning, just based on demand, we’ll be a little bit more in the iconic,” McCarthy said.

MTV is currently the fastest growing network on television, Deadline reports, with viewership in prime time up 21 percent year-over-year. The network attracted 2.9 billion streams in 2018, up 83 percent, and has amassed 350 million followers on social media around the world.