Almost a decade ago, on Oct. 14, 2013, the first episode of The Thundermans aired on Nickelodeon.
The beloved franchise ended nearly five years later, on May 25, 2018. It comprised four seasons and 103 episodes, making the Thundermans the longest-running Nickelodeon live-action sitcom since iCarly ended. With multiple cast members confirming it to be the series finale, fans were left with what seemed to be the end.
However, it was revealed on Dec. 2, 2023, that The Thundermans would be returning to Metroburg to fight crime, in a new movie, The Thundermans Return! The Instagram page has been chock full of promo for the movie, with cast members partaking in multiple interviews.
On Mar. 7, 2024, the highly anticipated The Thunderman Returns film aired on Nickelodeon. It was also released on Paramount+, Philo, YouTube, Sling TV, and Amazon Prime.
From the start of the movie, characters began making pop culture references. They also joke about how long it’s been since the franchise ended. The show has the typical Nickelodeon sitcom quips that you would expect, with a modern twist.
Max and Phoebe’s obsession with popularity and besting all other superheroes gets in the way of their crime fighting. Because of this, the Thunderman family gets decommissioned due to complications in battle that arise from their selfishness.
Replaced by another superhero squad/pop band, The V-Team, The Thundermans return to Hiddenville, their place of origin. The middle siblings, Nora and Billy, attempt to become regular teens, with no double life attached. Chloe, the youngest of the family, tries to fit in with kids her age. The parents, Barbara and Hank, cope with their children growing up and not needing them anymore. Max and Phoebe take the change the hardest, unable to adjust to being regular civilians.
Colosso, their supervillain-turned-talking-pet-bunny, is revealed to have stayed in Max’s Hiddenville lair while they were away fighting crime.
Through a series of plot twists, The Thundermans are compelled to use their superpowers to save Metroburg from doom. Max and Phoebe struggle with their egos to triumph against the supervillains of the movie.
Ultimately, the evil plan of the supervillains nearly comes to fruition. Max and Phoebe, with the help of their family, must escape the clutches of the supervillains.
The Thunderman family enlists the help of multiple returners from the series to help them defeat the supervillains. Will the Thundermans see victory, or is this truly the finale for the beloved superheroes?
The question of the newly-formed superheroes is put into question at the end of the movie, displaying a high level of ambivalence that Nickelodeon sitcom reviewer, Quinton Reviews, has pointed out in multiple of his YouTube reviews. The movie ends with the Thundermans freezing their potential future partners-in-saving, claiming they’ll “deal with that later.”
Due to this conclusion, it seems hopeful that Nickelodeon will release a Danger Force-like spinoff, similar to what they did with the Henry Danger franchise.
The Henry Danger movie was announced in 2017, three years before the first episode that a character from Danger Force appeared in, “The Beginning of the End.” Amid controversy surrounding the show’s director, Dan Schneider, the movie was never released.
Nearly a month after “The Beginning of the End” aired, the last episode of Henry Danger aired, with the premiere of Danger Force airing a week later.
Present day, with the end of Danger Force last month, a Henry Danger movie seems promising, as the Henry Danger actor himself, Jace Norman, announced his involvement in the film in a 2022 interview. Filming is set to start early this year.
With the cliffhanger of The Thundermans Return, coupled with the possibility of a new Henry Danger movie, the future of Nickelodeon seems to be rife with modern reprisals of sitcoms from Gen Z’s childhood.