New Looney Tunes movie in development

[Hubert]

Looney Tunes Are Heading Back To The Big Screen

For the first time since 2003, the Looney Tunes will be getting the feature treatment by Warner Bros. The project is moving forward with Jenny Slate, a comedian who was on Saturday Night Live during the 2009-2010 season, has been given the duty of writing the script, which will once again be a live-action/CG hybrid. David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith, best known for their work on Tim Burton's Dark Shadows and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, will be producing the movie alongside Harry Potter producer David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford.

The last time the beloved characters have had their own movie was Looney Tunes: Back In Action, but that film failed with both critics and audiences, managing to pull in only $68 million internationally on an $80 million budget. Before that they appeared in the basketball movie Space Jam with Michael Jordan and Bill Murray, which was treated even worse by critics but was much more successful at the box office. Since 2003 there have been a few Looney Tunes shorts that have made their way into theaters, including Coyote Falls, a Wille E. Coyote and Road Runner sketch that played in front of Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore; I Tawt I Taw A Putty Tat, a Sylvester, Tweety Bird and Granny bit that ran with Happy Feet Two; and Daffy Rhapsody, which was part of Journey 2: The Mysterious Island's release.

Details on how the studio plans to bring back the characters, according to THR, are currently under wraps and no time table or directing candidates are mentioned.

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Looney-Tunes-Heading-Back-Big-Screen-33058.html

 

[D'Snowth]

Hmm... I wonder how THIS one will turn out.

But, is it just me, or does it seem like CGI/live action is starting to become a big gimmick like 3D is?

 

[Sgt Floyd]

Ew...CGI scares me. I really hope they are at least 2d and not 3d :/

 

[Oscarfan]

On one hand, the new CGI Looney Tunes shorts look amazing. On the other hand, they work better in a short format and I don't think I would like a whole movie of it. Stick with 2D please.

 

[minor muppetz]

Part of me hopes that this will be a movie version of The Looney Tunes Show, even though it'd be better as an extended classic short. I hope it's better than Back in Action at least.

I wonder if it'd be bad if they made this into another compilation movie like the various '80s Looney Tunes films (The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, 1001 Rabbit Tales, etc.). I don't think I'd want to see a full-length movie comprised entirely of the Larry Doyle shorts from 2003.

 

[D'Snowth]

What are people's opinions of that "Back in Action" movie? I never saw it to be honest, it looked kind of cool, but at the same time, it looked really cheesy as well.

I liked Space Jam pretty well... not quite as good as say Roger Rabbit was, but I really don't think it deserves quite as much of a beating people like Doug Walker give it. Also, those Nerdlucks stole the show as far as I'm concerned, I wish they did more with those characters; Lola's been carried over from SJ in other Looney Tune projects, I would have loved to see the same consideration given to the Nerdlucks.

 

[Drtooth]

Well...

I'd chalk it up to the undeserved success of the boring Yogi Bear movie and the "Oh, well, at least Hank Azaria was funny" Smurfs film. But they did look into these sort of projects before that and nothing came of them. There was some absolutely dumb sounding film about Marvin the Martian trying to destroy Earth on Christmas and a bunch of kids were to stop him (and clearly take up too much screen time).

I have to admit, they got the CGI Looney Tunes look shockingly good... at least with the theatrical shorts. I wish the Road Runner cartoons in the Looney Tunes show had that budget. But I really want to see classic Roger Rabbit style animation/live action. Not how Bugs and Daffy would kinda sorta look if they were real.

As for Looney Tunes movies... Back in Action was Executive Meddling. There was a different, supposedly coherent ending that got axed, a brilliant opening mocking the fact they couldn't get the Batman franchise started up again (that got thrown under a bus for yet another Duck Season/Wabbit Season remake), and among other things, Yakko, Wakko and Dot were supposed to fall out of the tower and run away (I guess WB was too cheap to deal with Amblin, and they wanted people to forget about one of the best TV shows they ever did). Not to mention that Brendan Frasier and Jenna Elfman, while superior to the non-celebrity that was shoehorned into the Bullwinkle film as Karen Sympathy, still didn't need to take all that screen time.

But Space Jam had a better narrative, and it didn't pretend that it was a movie staring someone who can't act. Both films had their moments.

 

[minor muppetz]

What are people's opinions of that "Back in Action" movie? I never saw it to be honest, it looked kind of cool, but at the same time, it looked really cheesy as well.

It had some stuff I liked and some stuff I didn't. It very well could have been titled "Bugs and Daffy: Back in Action". Many of the other characters aren't used as much, instead having cameos or their own scenes (yeah, I'd have rather it been like Space Jam, with the characters as a group). Porky Pig and Speedy Gonzales are limited to a short but funny scene (the alternate opening would have depicted them as securitiy guards), and I feel like Porky could have been in more of the film (well, he does the "that's all folks" gag). Road Runner only appears very briefly.

I'm mixed about whether it would have been better with the original opening or the opening that the movie got. In this movie's continuity it seems a Bugs Bunny film HAS to have Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd as co-stars, while many of the other characters (Sylvester, Tweety, Wile E., Yosimite Sam) function outside of the studio (probably a good move since many of them work for the bad guy).

I don't care much for the human characters, except for Steve Martin as the bad guy. He's hilarious. The book "Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide" (released around the time of this movie) refers to him as being like a live-action Looney Tune. One other thing I don't like was a cameo by Scooby-Doo and Shaggy, since they are not Looney Tunes. I know it takes place at the WB Studios (and a man dressed as Batman also appears), but a Looney Tunes movie should just have Looney Tunes. If it's going to have other Warner characters then it should have had Tom and Jerry, The Powerpuff Girls, the Tiny Toons, and others.

But I like Space Jam and the compilation movies better.

 

[Drtooth]

The Scooby-Doo cameo was forced in by Warner Bros. to basically say "A new Scooby-Doo movie is coming out next year."

And true to form, Taz made a random appearance in the second Scooby movie.

I didn't mind it, as they at least handled it well... but there's so many production problems and "What could have beens" that the studio screwed with. Unfortunately, the list I once saw is missing, so I can't get into other specifics. It really could have used a better narrative and a different release date. Maybe a later one, to work out some of the script problems.

 

[AlittleMayhem]

I liked Back in Action, despite nit-picks! I think it's one of those films you have to be a huge fan of the original cartoons to really enjoy it. There's lots of in jokes of the cartoons and a few really creative scenes, the chase through the Louvre being one of them, probably my favorite scene. The mix of animation and live action, while not Roger Rabbit, was pretty good and the lead actors were kinda just meh. I guess it kinda fails from too much plot, but it's been a while since I saw it so I don't really remember everything. Space Jam I like for nostalgia's sake....and Lola Bunny.

With that said, I'm looking forward to this new Looney Tunes movie. If it's done right, it could be more successful the other movies. Early days, yes, but I'm remaining positive.