Nathan Fillion and the rest of the crew are fueling up for an animated Firefly series

As hard as it is to believe in our modern age of reboots, revivals, remakes, and legacy sequels, some cult classic TV shows are still waiting for permission to relaunch. Despite what became of Arrested Development, fans still eagerly await Community’s long-prophesied “and a movie” to accompany its six seasons. Bryan Fuller began planting the seeds of Pushing Daisies’ third season only a few months before the Buffy revival was sent back to one of the Sunnydale Library’s many fine drawing boards. But Buffy isn’t the only Joss Whedon creation people are still interested in—even if they’re not interested in his return. At yesterday’s Awesome Con, Captain Mal himself, Nathan Fillion, brought news Browncoats near and far have been praying for for decades: A Firefly revival is in the works, albeit in animated form. 

Fillion made the announcement during a live taping of his podcast, Once We Were Spacemen, which he hosts with Firefly co-star Alan Tudyk. The news followed weeks of social media teases and was followed by a clarifying post from Fillion on Instagram. In the video, Fillion—accompanied by front-facing dispatches from the rest of the crew, including Tudyk, Gina Torres, Jewel Staite, Morena Baccarin, Sean Maher, Adam Baldwin, and Summer Glau—says the script has been written, the rights secured, and a showrunner decided. Fillion says that married showrunners who met “because of Firefly, Tara Butters (Agent Carter, Dollhouse) and Marc Guggenheim (Arrow) would run the show, in lieu of the show’s original creative engine, Joss Whedon. 

“The word is out, we’re going to try and bring back Firefly,” Fillion says in the video, “and this time, we’re going to animate it.”