Jem and the Holograms will join Prime Video’s TV offerings of female-centered series that have seen massive success with Gen Z like The Summer I Turned Pretty and newest addition, Off Campus. Deadline broke the news that Amazon and MGM studios are starting the development process for a TV series based on the hit animation from 1985, Jem. This series adaptation is coming just over 10 years after the poorly-received film, directed by Jon. M Chu, hit theaters in 2015.

The Jem and the Holograms film has a truly outrageous rating of 22% on Rotten Tomatoes. Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter said, “Not being part of the generation that watched the show, I can’t vouch for its merits. But it’s safe to say that it must be miles ahead of this wan, bloated screen version which forgoes the original’s sci-fi and thriller aspects.” Indeed, many fans of the original animated series criticized how far the movie strayed from the cartoon and bemoaned that the story wasn’t exciting enough to get a new generation on board. 

The original cartoon possesses elements of sci-fi through Jem’s holographic computer, which she inherited from her father and uses to live a double-life as the practical Jerrica Benton and her pop star alter-ego Jem. Jerrica raises money for the Starlight Foundation through her band and Starlight music, the recording company owned by her and her sister Kimber Benton. 

In the original animation, Starlight Foundation is a charity for foster girls created by Jerrica’s parents, Emmet and Jacqui Benton and continuing the foundation is an important part of the band’s mission. In the 2015 film, the Starlight Foundation is rebranded as Starlight Enterprise owned by antagonist executive Erica Raymond (Juliette Lewis), rather than a charity. Additionally, Jem becomes a popstar through a viral video of her singing that her sister secretly posts.