Netflix ordered an animated reboot of the Eighties computer game franchise Carmen Sandiego, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Jane the Virgin's Gina Rodriguez will star as the titular globe-trotting thief and Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard will voice Player, Carmen's accomplice and friend. The series will premiere in 2019.
The new show will find Carmen Sandiego traveling the world and pulling off a string of international – and educational – heists. However, the Netflix reboot will also indulge in some of the golden age of television's favorite thematic trappings, delving into Carmen Sandiego's past and uncovering why and how she became a super thief.
The Carmen Sandiego franchise began in 1985 with the release of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, an educational computer game from Brøderbund Software. Brøderbund would release a slew of titles over the next several decades – everything from Where In Time is Carmen Sandiego? to Where in North Dakota is Carmen Sandiego? – in which players generally worked for the ACME Detective Agency to track Carmen as she traversed the globe, the space-time continuum and, presumably, Fargo, stealing priceless artifacts and buildings. In 2015, Brøderbund released its newest game, Carmen Sandiego Returns, while it has also recently crafted titles for Wii and Facebook.
Alongside the franchise's massive video game output, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? made its television premiere as a children's game show on PBS in 1991. A Where in Time spin-off followed in 1996, while an animated Saturday morning cartoon, Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego, debuted on Fox in 1994. The franchise also includes several board games, books, comic books, planetarium films and even a concert series.
