MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch revival to get it on with Ice Cube producing

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Sound the bells and put up your dukes, because MTV Studios has announced that they're planning a revival of their stop-motion animated series CELEBRITY DEATHMATCH! According to reports, series creator Eric Fogel will get back into the ring as the program's executive producer, with legendary rapper-actor Ice Cube set to executive produce and star in the new version of MTV's cult classic animated bloodbath.

At a time when MTV was still worth a damn, CELEBRITY DEATHMATCH aired from 1998-2001. The half hour stop-motion animated series featured a diverse cast of celebrity combatants engaging in off-the-wall wrestling-style matches to the death. Often starring the voices of Mills Lane, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Debbie Matenopoulos, MTV's CELEBRITY DEATHMATCH showcased a number of hilarious one-on-one pairings, including matches the likes of Lady Gaga vs. Madonna, Ron Jeremy vs. Miley Cyrus, Chris Rock vs. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Weird Al vs. Al Gore, and even Beavis vs. Butt-Head, among many others. The series was relaunched for two seasons in 2006 and 2007, and was hoped to be rebooted again in 2015. Unfortunately, the 2015 pilot did not pique the interest of investors at that time.

“We’re excited to grow our partnership with Ice Cube and Cube Vision to reimagine this fan favorite,” said Chris McCarthy, president of MTV, VH1 and CMT. “’Deathmatch’ was the meme before memes, remains a hot topic on social media and will be a smart, funny way to tackle the over-the-top rhetoric of today’s pop culture where it belongs – in the wrestling ring.”

Okay, now it's time to have a little fun. If you were placed in charge of the CELEBRITY DEATHMATCH revival, which stars would you have beat the snot out of one another until one of them was nothing but a bloody stain on the mat? I'd love to see Dwayne Johnson vs. Kevin Hart, Charlize Theron's Furiosa  of MAD MAX: FURY ROAD fame vs. Lorraine Broughton of ATOMIC BLONDE, Ryan Reynolds vs. Hugh Jackman, and Tiffany Haddish vs. Regina Hall, just to name a few. Let us know your ideas for matches in the comments section below. Let's get it on!

MTV's CELEBRITY DEATHMATCH will be available as a weekly series for an SVOD or other network affiliate in 2019.

Source: Variety

About the Author

Born and raised in New York, then immigrated to Canada, Steve Seigh has been a JoBlo.com editor, columnist, and critic since 2012. He started with Ink & Pixel, a column celebrating the magic and evolution of animation, before launching the companion YouTube series Animation Movies Revisited. He's also the host of the Talking Comics Podcast, a personality-driven audio show focusing on comic books, film, music, and more. You'll rarely catch him without headphones on his head and pancakes on his breath.