Bad news, everyone!

[drotato]

That really sucks. D:<

[charliepanayi]

Its surprising how many people won't even give a new voicecast a chance, already claiming Future-ama a dead show.

Heres a possibility, what if, by chance, the voice actors can do it justice? Is it so hard to believe more then one person in this world is capable of delivering a good preformance as Fry?

As long as the scripts are good, and the VA's are good, I'll continue watching, even if they aren't the same.

Wouldn't you find it a bit disconcerting though if your favourite show (be it animated or live action) had its entire main cast/voicecast changed? It's a pretty extreme thing to happen. And it also seems so needless - is all this just because people can't agree on wages?

[The Space Pope]

It's probably a publicity stunt. Futurama has a huge fanbase and there's no way Fox wouldn't have the money to pay for their salaries. Recasts are also guaranteed suicide for TV shows and movies and Fox knows better than to do this to a hit like Futurama.

Of course I could be wrong and the world WILL end on December 21, 2012.

Why would they need to make a publicity stunt? People have known it was coming back for awhile now.

As for what NeoCracker said, the show's budget has been greatly cut, and production will be rushed, it's not just a new voice cast, it's why they had to do it.

[NeoCracker]

Its surprising how many people won't even give a new voicecast a chance, already claiming Future-ama a dead show.

Heres a possibility, what if, by chance, the voice actors can do it justice? Is it so hard to believe more then one person in this world is capable of delivering a good preformance as Fry?

As long as the scripts are good, and the VA's are good, I'll continue watching, even if they aren't the same.

Wouldn't you find it a bit disconcerting though if your favourite show (be it animated or live action) had its entire main cast/voicecast changed? It's a pretty extreme thing to happen. And it also seems so needless - is all this just because people can't agree on wages?

It's a bit different with Live action, though still very possible. I mean just look at Harry Potter, the new Dumbledore did just as well as the first. True, they HAD to replace him to do the show, but same principle.

And it could bother me a bit at first, but not nearly enough to abandon a show all together. It all depends on their talent and ability to play that roll.

It's probably a publicity stunt. Futurama has a huge fanbase and there's no way Fox wouldn't have the money to pay for their salaries. Recasts are also guaranteed suicide for TV shows and movies and Fox knows better than to do this to a hit like Futurama.

Of course I could be wrong and the world WILL end on December 21, 2012.

Why would they need to make a publicity stunt? People have known it was coming back for awhile now.

As for what NeoCracker said, the show's budget has been greatly cut, and production will be rushed, it's not just a new voice cast, it's why they had to do it.

Well then maybe people should stop bitching about the VA thing and bitch about that instead.

[The Space Pope]

Well then maybe people should stop bitching about the VA thing and bitch about that instead.

I never flat-out said I wasn't going to give it a try, of course I will. And yeah some of the voices can be easily replaced, I think I used Zoidberg as an example in some other post. But going from experience, I've almost never liked when a show/game changes the voices up on me, I dunno, I get used to the old ones.

[NeoCracker]

I wasn't really reffering to you, more of a general statement.

[The Space Pope]

But you quoted me and I want to feel important. ;c

Also update from IGN for those too lazy to google.

Update: Variety is now chiming in on the Futurama situation, and it looks like this is indeed the real deal, as in not any sort of hoax. Variety confirms that the show has a dramatically slashed budget, and that the salary offers made to the cast were far below what they were asking – which Variety says was likely around $75,000 an episode. The budget cuts (compared to what the show had when it originally was produced) have also led to a smaller writing staff and a shorter schedule to produce episodes.

If there's any hope for fans, it's the fact that a casting call for new voice actors doesn't necessarily mean that a deal still can't be made. In fact, Variety points out that when negotiations were going badly for new deals with The Simpsons cast several years ago, similar casting inquiries were made for new actors – and obviously, in that case, the original cast did eventually come to terms on a new deal. Let's all cross our fingers that history repeats itself here...

So it looks definite, but as they pointed out, the Simpsons went through the same thing, even though I haven't watched the Simpsons in many seasons.

[black orb]

>>> Maybe the new voices are better..
Anyway this doesnt concern me since i just watch the spanish dub (and is great)..

[Heath]

I'm disappointed by this, but I'm also disappointed by the all-round budget cuts which means they'll have a smaller staff and less time to produce the episodes. I was really looking forward to the new series of Futurama and I don't think that these changes will make it terrible, but I do worry that these factors will mean that the new episodes don't reach the standards of the previous four series. I'm still looking forward to it in spite of this, however. I certainly consider it a loss though.

[Darkswordofchaos]

yeah tv networks are pretty stupid the're so afraid to lose money on somthing like this that they wont spend the enitial money to make it good witch would in turn make lots of money but instead they cut budgets so as to not lose money then its a crap show unlike it used to be and no body watches so it ends up costing the network money. kinda like they casused it to happen by trying to avoid it.

[Slade]

Being quite a huge fan of the series, this is probably the worst news I've heard in ages. It came as a huge shock because I distinctly remember during the numerous commentaries I've watched the voice actors claiming that they loved the show and it was one of the best shows they'd worked on, or at least they acted that way. If this whole salary thing is the issue then they couldn't have loved the show that much.

*sigh*

I was very excited for a 6th season. Not so much anymore. We'll see though I spose. It may not turn out as bad as everyone thinks. Although, apparently only a few of the writing staff returned too. That kind of crushes my hope even more.
Time will tell....

[McLovin']

Bender is irreplaceable!

[The Space Pope]

Phil LaMarr (Hermes) had this to say:

"Anytime you work on a show this good it's a very collaborative process. The ideas begin with the very talented writers, obviously, but once the actors give voice to the words the influence starts to go both ways. On a show that was less well-written, less character-based with less actual acting in it, changing the cast would make much less of a difference. But it's going to take at least three people to replace Billy West and if they get anybody else to do Bender -- it's just going to be a different character."

'Futurama' Voice Actor Speaks Out About Potential Recasting - ComicsAlliance.com

[Denmark]

Heres a possibility, what if, by chance, the voice actors can do it justice? Is it so hard to believe more then one person in this world is capable of delivering a good preformance as Fry?

And Zoidberg? And the Professor? And Zapp Brannigan? And Richard Nixon? And Leo Wong? And Ren? And Stimpy? And Doug Funnie? And Roger Klotz? And the Red M&M? And the Honey Nut Cheerios Bee?

tldr Billy West is irreplaceable.

[The Space Pope]

To be honest, the Fry/Zoidberg voices wouldn't be hard to mimic by even a semi-talented voice actor. And Zapp Brannigan could be done by just about any guy with even a semi-deep voice. Hell he sounded like a voice Phil Hartman could do (who was supposed to play him before he died, West just mimicked the voice.)

Also, Billy West wasn't always Ren, the creator, John Kricfalusi used to be and you never noticed the change, which shows that it's not impossible to switch voice actors smoothly.