‘Firefly’ Revival is being developed as an animated series: Nathan Fillion

Now it can be revealed: “Firefly” is indeed coming back, sort of. Star Nathan Fillion, who teased some sort of revival of the cult hit series — which lasted less than one season and then returned as a movie — will become an animated show.

According to Termwho broke the news, Marc Guggenheim and Tara Butters will serve as showrunners, and the show will take place between the TV show (which ran in 2002) and the 2005 feature film “Serenity.” Animation studio ShadowMachine is providing the visuals. Fillion’s Collision33 is being developed in collaboration with 20th Television Animation.

Fillion was scheduled to share the news at the AwesomeCon event in Washington, D.C., as well as provide details about the “Once We Were Spacemen” podcast, which he and co-star Alan Tudyk (Hoban “Wash” Washburne) launched in November.

In cryptic social media videos from last week with co-stars Gina Torres (Zoë Washburne), Morena Baccarin (Inara Serra), Sean Maher (Dr. Simon Tam), Summer Glau (River Tam), Jewel Staite (Kaylee Frye) and Adam Baldwin (Jayne Cobb), Fillion had hinted that something was going on.

Set 500 years in the future during a global civil war, ‘Firefly’ charted the whereabouts of spaceship Serenity and its nine crew in the year 2517. After its premiere in 2002, it grew into a cult phenomenon.

Fox canceled the show after eleven episodes, largely due to low ratings. It’s the original review, Variety wrote of ‘Firefly,’ “Bold and charming, Joss Whedon’s attempt to merge oaters with ‘Star Trek’ is just dumb enough to work — and there’s absolutely nothing like it on TV.”

There’s more to come