Plans for Roger Rabbit 2?

[darthjohnny]

MTV Movies revealed that producer Frank Marshal is working on the sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit:

‘Roger Rabbit’ Sequel Still In The Offing? Stay Tooned, Says Producer


9 Comments | Published by Shawn Adler on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 at 4:24 pm.
Ask Judge Doom: no toon can resist the old “Shave-and-a-Haircut” gag. But when plans went around Hollywood for a sequel to the 1988 classic “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” a lot of powerful people suddenly realized it would take more than the promise of “Two-bits” for Roger to come busting through the door.
Now, nearly twenty years after “Roger Rabbit” first exploded onto the big screen, producer Frank Marshall told MTV News that he’s still “open” to the possibility of another film, derailed in the mid-90s because of what would have then been cost-prohibitive special effects.
But don’t hate Roger for the fact that the movie didn’t get made in the first place. He’s not expensive…he’s just drawn that way.
“It came pretty close. We shot a test. We had a script. But unfortunately, we didn’t have computer generated animation quite yet - it was just too expensive,” Marshall explained of the untitled sequel project, “Roger Rabbit 2.” “If you think about it, in the original movie there’s really only 48 minutes of animation and in the new movie - or in that movie - he was in everything. So it went from 48 minutes of animation to over 100 minutes of animation.
“I remember we shot the test to try and see how much we could do with digital props - We weren’t even into digital characters yet,” Marshall continued. “The idea was to see what we could do with digital props as opposed to what we did in the original movie where everything was puppeted - all the props were puppeted by strings and wires and poles.”
For the first time ever, Marshall also revealed details of the plot of “Roger Rabbit 2,” and if you thought Toontown was a trip, you should have seen where they were sending Roger next.
“New York!” Marshall enthused of the setting for the second film. “Roger was a song and dance man in New York City [when he] discovered that he wanted to be in the movies and so he came across the country. I remember there being a big dance number. He came out with a troupe of sort of Busby Berkeley dancers on a train and they got to Hollywood and he and Baby Herman moved in together. And that’s when he met Eddie Valiant.”
Sounds too good to pass up, especially now that studios like Pixar exist (and under Disney no less), to help with Computer Animation. So ok, Mr. Marshall, what if we say “P-p-p-p-p-please!”
“Definitely,” Marshall playfully responded. “I’ll put in a call to [Pixar chief John] Lasseter after I hang up.”
Why do we love Roger? Because he makes us laugh. Let’s get this project moving. Show your support for a “Roger Rabbit” sequel below.

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2007/12/11...says-producer/

It'll be very interesting to see if this goes through.

 

[imagineer boy]

Interesting! I love the first roger rabbit and would love to see this made.

However, they'd better not go cheap and use a CGI Roger Rabbit. He must be animated. Plus I don't want to see them using CGI props. The way they interacted with real props in the original made it so amazing. These days, they could easily do somthing along the lines of having someone in a blue screen suit carrying around real props which would look far more convincing.

 

[SonicRuin]

I would LOVE to see a second Roger finally!!! One of my fave movies and characters! But I also agree, NO CGI!!!

 

[darthjohnny]

I wonder if by CGI, Marshall didn't mean to have a 3-D creation, but have Roger's regular 2-D look only made and placed into the scene much more easily by the computer. :shrug:

 

[davidpw97]

Awesome, I don't care what the plot is but Jessica better be in it. Probably one of the hottest animated chicks ever. :slurp:

 

[clarksfan95]

If they are talking CGI, then it means that Roger will be CGI.

A couple things about the article that caught my attention....first off the CGI thing. I think that Roger might look more in place if he was CG rather than 2D. If done right the integration of the CG and real life actors could be...um...realistic. As much as everyone hates Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars, he fit visually with everything else.

The second was that:

Sounds too good to pass up, especially now that studios like Pixar exist (and under Disney no less), to help with Computer Animation.

Pixar isn't a company that assists with animation, they are a company that makes and does animation. They aren't like many other freelance studios whose services are up for rent and I don't think Pixar would be involved in this process.

The third is that there is an ongoing lawsuit by this guy against Disney for....drum roll.....unpaid royalties. It's been in the courts for a while and I haven't heard much about it in the past two years.

The fourth was the story concept. UGH!!! That's the worst idea I've ever heard. Send him to New York City? What made the original so cool was the timeframe that the movie was to have taken place in. If you put him in New York then that timeframe is going to be pushed up to current day and I dont' think that that would benefit the movie whatsoever.

Plus this guy is only "hopeful" that it might happen someday. When I first saw the title and started reading it I thought that it might have already been started, but this is almost a rumor-styled article.

Guess we'll have to see what happens.

 

[darthjohnny]

If they are talking CGI, then it means that Roger will be CGI.

A couple things about the article that caught my attention....first off the CGI thing. I think that Roger might look more in place if he was CG rather than 2D. If done right the integration of the CG and real life actors could be...um...realistic. As much as everyone hates Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars, he fit visually with everything else.

The second was that:



Pixar isn't a company that assists with animation, they are a company that makes and does animation. They aren't like many other freelance studios whose services are up for rent and I don't think Pixar would be involved in this process.

The third is that there is an ongoing lawsuit by this guy against Disney for....drum roll.....unpaid royalties. It's been in the courts for a while and I haven't heard much about it in the past two years.

The fourth was the story concept. UGH!!! That's the worst idea I've ever heard. Send him to New York City? What made the original so cool was the timeframe that the movie was to have taken place in. If you put him in New York then that timeframe is going to be pushed up to current day and I dont' think that that would benefit the movie whatsoever.

Plus this guy is only "hopeful" that it might happen someday. When I first saw the title and started reading it I thought that it might have already been started, but this is almost a rumor-styled article.

Guess we'll have to see what happens.

Well, it says Computer Animation. Computers can make 2-D animation as well and, like I said before, it would be much easier to place it into the scene with computer. But he could have a 3-D look. I'm not sure.

What makes you think if it's placed in New York that it'll definately be in current day?

The way this article is written, it sounds that Frank Marshall is a little more than "open", especially since he gave a few plot details. Plus he said he'll put in a call to John Lasseter.

So we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[imagineer boy]

Well, in the original Roger Rabbit, they used some CGI techniques to make the characters look more rounded and 3-D even though they were done with 2-D animation.

 

[clarksfan95]

He'll be CG....you never hear people talk about CG while discussing 2D animation. Most 2D animation made on a computer lacks the quality that is found in feature films. All features are hand drawn first then scanned in and colorized in the computer. (Unless you can think of an example...I'm tried thinking of one...but nothing popping up in my head) Integration such as Beauty and Beast doesn't count because that's just compositing, which is basically what they did in the first Roger Rabbit. The reason Roger looks 3D in the first is due to the paint job that they applied to him. There were no computers that did the actual character animation in that film.

Computers can make CG look handdrawn, but in the end, it's still CG. It's easier to have a computer to make something look handdrawn (Razpunzel for example) then to do it the other way around and have someone draw something to look CG (though this is also possible, it never looks really looks realistic)

And besides....CG is apparently the cool thing to do these days....let alone it's a lot cheaper and much easier to composite with live action.

As for New York, I don't know....that was my first instinct thought. I'll still stand by it though, I have a sense that if this film ever does come around it's gonna be a bit updated. I could be wrong...especially with the little amount of info they've given, but trust me when I say that people don't discuss CG animation when they are considering 2D. I think he would've mentioned 2D since most people know of the great divide between the two now. 10 years ago it probably wouldn't have mattered...but today, people are highly aware of the difference and many complain about the lack of 2D.

 

[Green Lantern]

I would love for a sequel, I love WFRR. But doesn't Amblin own half the rights to the character and Disney has to get their OK on anything RR related?

Has anyone ever read the book Who Censored Roger Rabbit? Great book. The sequel novel, Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit was good, but not as good as the first book.

I love how in MGM Eddie Valiants office window is street dressing, complete with cut out of Roger's body through the shades.

Remember the whole Roger set up in MGM around the back lot area that had all the Roger props?

 

[catinthehat]

I think that would make for a great sequel. Who Framed Roger Rabbit was one of my favorite movies as a kid. It was pretty forward thinking with the mix of animation and live action. The plot of the sequel sounds kinda like Enchanted!

 

[Blink Me]

i'm not sure whether it will happen this time, but i'd love it if it was a crossover with warner brothers characters again. and maybe tom and jerry can appear as well. If its set in the 50's or 60's we could also see hanna-barbera characters as well. And it'd be cool if comic book characters appeared as well like Batman and Spiderman. i suppose i can only dream for now though.

But i'm glad they're thinking of finally getting a sequel made anyway.

 

[Green Lantern]

i'm not sure whether it will happen this time, but i'd love it if it was a crossover with warner brothers characters again. and maybe tom and jerry can appear as well. If its set in the 50's or 60's we could also see hanna-barbera characters as well. And it'd be cool if comic book characters appeared as well like Batman and Spiderman. i suppose i can only dream for now though.

But i'm glad they're thinking of finally getting a sequel made anyway.

I'd love to see lots of cameos by cartoon characters like in the first one, but I bet it would be very expensive for Disney to have to pay rights to the owners of those characters to use them for the film.

 

[Blink Me]

I'd love to see lots of cameos by cartoon characters like in the first one, but I bet it would be very expensive for Disney to have to pay rights to the owners of those characters to use them for the film.

yeah that is annoying. Did warner brothers and that get paid quite a bit last time then for their characters? I wonder how it worked.

 

[clarksfan95]

Disney just helped distribute the film and did some assisting animation for the first one, they didn't have any control as far as I know over the story. A major portion of the animation was done in England at the Richard Williams studio and Disney, Warners and a couple others were brought in to assist with in-betweening and clean-up. So technically, Disney didn't have to pay anything to the other companies.

The thing that makes this movie so difficult to produce is that the rights are spread out...Steven Spielberg owns partial rights (Amblin "was" his company, but now it's logos only appear on things that he works on), the creator of Roger Rabbit owns a part and then Disney owns a part. The ability to get these entities to actually work together and agree on things I would think has been the reason no sequel has come out.