Roger Rabbit Sequel?

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Post by Dan » October 31st, 2009, 12:13 am

Courtesy of SlashFilm

Robert Zemeckis has been loosening us up for a Who Framed Roger Rabbit sequel for some months now, letting slip the odd reference here and there that he’s been keen to give the follow on a good crack. In April he said that he had a good idea for the second installment; on July 22nd he said he’d been discussing the film with Bob Hoskins; on July 23rd he told the Comic-Con audience that he could neither deny nor confirm any plans for a sequel.

Now he’s just come out and revealed that not only is he gunning for another run at the funny Bunny, but also that writing on the new screenplay already currently underway. Purist fans of the original will probably jump for joy at his revelation on who is wielding the pen, because it’s none other than the scribes of part one, Peter Seaman and Jeffrey Price.

I think that Zemeckis has now been sufficiently loose lipped that we can start to read between the lines a little. Let’s rake over some of his quotes after this break.

We all know that Zemeckis is the leading proponent of performance capture cinema, in terms of output if arguably not in terms of quality. Is he planning for Roger 2 to utilise these techniques? Here’s the salient quotage, pieced together from various interviews a line at a time:
I’ll tell you what is buzzing around in my head now that we have the ability -the digital tools, performance capture - I’m starting to think about Roger Rabbit.
The 2D characters from the original movie will remain 2D. They will not be dimensionalized. Not to say there wont be 3D.
I’m really committed to getting this art form [performance capture] off of the ground, but of course I would [shoot live action again] and I’m never going to say never to anything, but right now though I really want to make sure that we get this out there so that younger filmmakers have these absolutely breathtaking tools that they can use.
A picture is starting to take shape, don’t you think? A Roger Rabbit film that will use motion capture and 2D animation… or maybe motion capture to create the 2D animation? Wow. That’d be something a bit different from Zemeckis recent attempts to plough through the valley of the uncanny. Can’t imagine how he’d approach anything like the quality of work that animators would generate, however. I love mo-cap but it’s definitely not a replacement for animation.

MTV, who gathered the Seaman and Price information, are promising that they have more news to come and that they’re going to roll it over the next few days. Hit teases. I’ll be keeping an eye on their reports though, to see just how much more shading we can add to this sketch of Zemeckis’ plans.

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Post by Tyler_Legrand » October 31st, 2009, 3:01 am

Dimensionalized!

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Post by Ben » October 31st, 2009, 8:15 am

Of course, the mo-cap could be used to feature Bob Hoskins as Eddie Valiant without looking like a day has gone by since part one...or maybe even younger if the prequel rumors hold true? ;)

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Post by estefan » October 31st, 2009, 9:21 am

If they can also get Steven Spielberg and Richard Williams on board for this, I could definitely get more excited for this.

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Post by Ben » October 31st, 2009, 9:32 am

I don't think RW would be on board...he got stung enough after the last time.

As for SS...I am sure DreamWorks' and Zemeckis' new pacts with Disney haven't exactly been stumbling blocks towards making RR2 a reality. ;)

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Post by eddievalient » October 31st, 2009, 10:06 am

My question is would they still use the score and songs that Alan Menken wrote or would they scrap that and start over from scratch?
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Post by estefan » October 31st, 2009, 12:32 pm

Ben wrote:I don't think RW would be on board...he got stung enough after the last time.
Because of the Thief and the Cobbler decable?

As much as Zemeckis did an excellent job directing Roger Rabbit and Seaman and Price wrote a terrific screenplay, I feel a lot of the success of the film definitely goes to Spielberg and Williams. Spielberg for managing to round up the Warner and Fleischer cartoon characters and convince them to appear in a Disney film and Williams for managing to perfectly blend animated characters with live-action settings.

Nonetheless, I am looking forward to this project as I do want to see another traditional animation/live-action hybrid. Aside from maybe Enchanted and the SpongeBob Movie, I think Looney Tunes: Back in Action was the last one of these.

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Post by OriginalGagBonkers » November 7th, 2009, 5:15 pm

Now that we got the original writers for the film on board, I now need to see Williams and Speilberg on this project. If they ain't on it, then I'm not seeing it. And btw Zemeckis is using mo-cap for the humans for this instead of actors for live-action, no surprise there.

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Post by Ben » November 7th, 2009, 5:20 pm

...which lends credibility to my hunch that he will get Bob Hoskins back to reprise Eddie Valiant, but that it will be a 1947/1988 Eddie Valiant as in the original, not Hoskins as he looks now.

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Post by Meson » November 7th, 2009, 7:26 pm

Isn't it too late for a Roger Rabbit sequal? I think we have all moved on to other things already...
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Post by American_dog_2008 » November 7th, 2009, 7:50 pm

I think the movie will have hip rave or rap performance, set in 1940's. :D

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Post by Daniel » July 20th, 2010, 5:06 pm

Looks like no mo-cap after all:
Toontown Antics wrote:Robert Zemeckis was interviewed while attending the “Cine & Chianti” retrospective in Tuscany (Italy) and he talked again about the upcoming Roger Rabbit sequel. He said that probably Steven Spielberg will join him again for the making of this movie (Spielberg producing, Zemeckis directing), but also kinda revealed that the sequel might be presented in 3D!!

But don’t get alarmed fellas: he talks about the 3D feature that’s the current trend on movie theaters, not the CGI-animated graphics. The animation on the sequel will remain 2D and live action sequences will be filmed, just like in the original movie. Even he explains the differences between the 3D films that are being projected currently (the computer-made ones and true 3D films that require special equipment for its filming, against the 2D movies converted to 3D) and how Roger Rabbit 2 will take advantage of the newest technologies for providing a better experience to the audiences.

The whole interview was uploaded by Youtube user sentieriselvaggi and Zemeckis starts to talk about the RR sequel at the 1:47 mark.
"remain 2D" hallelujah! :)

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Post by Ben » July 20th, 2010, 5:23 pm

"Roger Rabbit II"...

...Or "My Mo-Cap Projects Didn't Work Out And Before I Can Make Yellow Submarine The Studio Really Needs To See I Haven't Lost It, So I Better Deliver Them A Sure Fire Hit".

Whatever the reasons behind the making of this (and I do understand that it has been on and off since 1989 and apparently delayed for genuine creative reasons, though a little obvious that it's coming up on the fast track when BZ needs a big, big hit), I remain pleased that a sequel is coming to one of my favorite movies. Perhaps Hoskins could still be the mo-cap element, to make him look like Eddie Valiant, circa 1949/50 or so, unless he makes a cameo appearance if they go back to the prequel idea (which would also be very cool), and news that the character animation will be 2D is great.

Though there are no details on hand-drawn as opposed to digitally created 2D, I would imagine this is a bit of a win-win situation for everyone: BZ gets another hit film, Disney's Lasseter gets another traditional animation project that will probably be a big hit for the unit, and we get another Roger Rabbit movie.

Now I just want them to stop dropping hints and announce the thing! :)

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Post by estefan » July 20th, 2010, 6:38 pm

I'm so glad that Zemeckis will finally be putting away his motion-capture toy-box and even if it's just for one film, at least it's for this one. Also nice to see Spielberg will be executive-producing, as he was one of the major reasons why Warner Brothers allowed Disney permission to use their characters.

If the script is great, this should be a more-than-worthy sequel. Though I wonder if Richard Williams will come back. Zemeckis was definitely important in getting the film-noir styling of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but Williams was the one who pushed for the cartoon-human interaction to look more seamless as well as actually having the camera move.

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Post by Macaluso » July 20th, 2010, 6:39 pm

Ben wrote: Perhaps Hoskins could still be the mo-cap element, to make him look like Eddie Valiant, circa 1949/50 or so
Dear god no, I would probably be super pissed at the movie if that happens. Either Hoskens or no Hoskens.

I'd be fine with the prequel idea so they could get around the now much older Hoskens. Or even one more set in the future. I wouldn't be adverse to CGI characters appearing in the movie as long as the 2D characters did too.

Also is there any news on whether they'll get WB and such to contribute characters again? It wouldn't be quite the same if it was ALL just Disney characters.

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