Scooby Doo is back!

Prequel to the live-action films in the works

Scooby Dooby Doo! Have we got a Prequel for You!

Not content with rebooting the Batman franchise, Warner Bros are rewinding back time on the Scooby Gang.

Brian Levant (“The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas”, “Are We There Yet?”) has signed to direct a new “Scooby Doo” film – a telemovie prequel to the two “Scooby Doo” films of previous years.

Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr will be sitting this one out. A nation-wide casting call is now underway to find the new Fred, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy.

In this new pic, Daphne’s a mystery writer inspired by Murder She Wrote; Fred’s a football player with a penchant for jigsaw puzzles who decides to try out for the school paper, his idol is footballer turned supreme court justice Bryan ‘Whizzer’ White; Shaggy is as daft as ever and not doing so well at school; and Velma (who I hear might be Asian in the new film) is a teen U.S ambassador for World Hunger.
Assumingly, they all apply for jobs at the school paper – for different reasons – and end up solving their first mystery…. Whatever that may be.

If there’s one thing the “Scooby Doo” films got right is the cast: Matthew Lillard and Linda Cardellini, as Shaggy and Velma, respectively, were perfect. Here’s hoping Warners find themselves some satisfactory surrogates…

Production begins in August in Vancouver.