Opus Rides Again! 'Bloom County' TV Series Gets Development Deal At Fox

Fox Corp FOX has given Berkeley Breathed the greenlight to develop his satirical comic strip “Bloom County” into an animated series.

What Happened: Variety is reporting the series is being developed by Fox’s animation studio Bento Box Entertainment in collaboration with Miramax, Spyglass Media Group and Project X Entertainment. Breathed will co-write and executive produce the new endeavor.

Fox Entertainment President Michael Thorn recalled becoming acquainted with Opus the Penguin, Bill the Cat and the joyfully dysfunctional Bloom County characters during his teen years and stated Breathed’s characters still resonate.

“Today, Berkeley’s smart and hilarious take on American culture is more relevant than ever,” Thorn said.

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Why It Matters: Breathed first gained notice as a cartoonist for his comic strip “The Academia Waltz,” which ran in the University of Texas’ student newspaper from 1978 through 1979. “Bloom County” premiered as a daily syndicated comic strip through the Washington Post Writers Group, reaching more than 1,200 newspapers worldwide during its peak years and earning Breathed a Pulitzer Prize in 1987.

Breathed ended “Bloom County” in 1989, replacing it with the Sunday-only “Outland” that ran through 1995. He returned with “Opus,” another Sunday-only spinoff, from 2003 through 2008. He revived “Bloom County” in 2015 as a daily strip on his Meta Platforms Inc.'s FB Facebook page.

While Breathed’s comic strips have been compiled into best-selling books, he resisted efforts to create film or television versions of his work. In announcing the Fox series, he issued a jokey statement acknowledging his foray into Hollywood.

“At the end of ‘Alien,’ we watched cuddly Sigourney Weaver go down for a long peaceful snooze in cryogenic hyper-sleep after getting chased around by a saliva-spewing maniac, only to be wakened decades later into a world STUFFED with far worse,” he said. “Fox and I have done the identical thing to Opus and the rest of the Bloom County gang, may they forgive us.”

Photo: Courtesy of Fox