In June, MTV announced the creation of MTV Studios with the plan of digging into the MTV vaults to relaunch and rework various shows. Daria, Made, and Real World were all part of the original slew of shows that were released across streaming platforms.
According to Deadline, Ice Cube will work with MTV productions to reboot Celebrity Death Match. Chris McCarthy, President of MTV, VH1 and CMT said:
“We’re excited to grow our partnership with Ice Cube and Cube Vision to re-imagine this fan favorite. 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.”
The original series premiered in May of 1998 and ran through October of 2002, airing a total of 75 episodes. A series revival premiered in 2006 on MTV2, however it was without the involvement of series creator Eric Fogel. The premiere became MTV2’s highest-rated season premiere ever, drawing over 2.5 million viewers. It was canceled after just 2 seasons in 2007.
The upcoming Celebrity Deathmatch will be shopped as a weekly series to premium (HBO, Showtime, etc.) and streaming networks in 2019.