Walt Disney Pictures purchased the film rights for the story in 1981. Price and Seaman wrote two drafts of the script before Disney brought in executive producer Steven Spielberg and his production company, Amblin Entertainment. Zemeckis was brought on to direct, and Canadian animator Richard Williams was hired to supervise the animation sequences. Production was moved from Los Angeles to Elstree Studios in England to accommodate Williams and his group of animators. While filming, the production budget rapidly expanded, and the shooting schedule ran longer than expected.
In 1947 Los Angeles, animated cartoon characters, or "toons", co-exist with humans, often employing their skills to entertain as film stars. Private detective Eddie Valiant, once a staunch ally of the toons alongside his brother and co-worker Teddy, has become a depressed alcoholic following Teddy's murder by an unknown toon five years earlier. Maroon Cartoon Studios owner R.K. Maroon, upset about the recent poor performance of his toon star Roger Rabbit, hires Eddie to investigate rumors that Roger's glamorous toon wife, Jessica, is having an affair with Marvin Acme, owner of both the Acme Corporation and Toontown, the animated metropolis in which toons reside.
After watching Jessica perform at The Ink and Paint Club, Eddie secretly photographs her and Acme playing patty-cake. He shows the pictures to Roger, who becomes distraught and flees, refusing to believe Jessica was unfaithful. The next morning, Acme is found murdered and evidence at the scene implicates Roger as a suspect. Eddie meets Judge Doom, the sinister human judge of Toontown—having bribed the electorate to gain their votes—and his five weasel minions, the Toon Patrol. Doom confirms he plans to execute Roger using the "Dip", a chemical concoction of acetone, benzene, and turpentine which is capable of destroying the otherwise invulnerable toons.
Roger's toon co-star, Baby Herman, suggests to Eddie that Acme's missing will—which supposedly bequeaths Toontown to the toons—may have been the killer's true motive. Eddie returns to his office and finds Roger waiting. Roger insists he has been framed and Eddie reluctantly agrees to help after finding evidence of Acme's will; he hides Roger in a bar tended by his girlfriend, Dolores. Jessica tells Eddie that Maroon threatened Roger's career unless she posed for the compromising photos. Meanwhile, Dolores's research uncovers that Cloverleaf Industries recently bought the city's Pacific Electric railway system and will purchase Toontown at midnight unless Acme's will is found. Doom and the Toon Patrol find Roger, but he and Eddie escape with help from Benny, a toon taxi cab. Sheltering in a local movie theater, Eddie sees a newsreel of Maroon selling his studio to Cloverleaf.
While Eddie goes to the studio to interrogate Maroon, Jessica abducts Roger. Maroon denies involvement in Acme's murder, admitting he intended to blackmail Acme into selling his company as otherwise Cloverleaf would not buy the studio. Maroon is assassinated and Eddie spots Jessica fleeing the scene. Assuming she is the assailant, he reluctantly follows her into Toontown, choosing to discard the last of his alcohol. After saving Eddie from being shot by Doom, Jessica reveals her actions were to ensure Roger's safety and it was Doom who killed Acme and Maroon. Acme gave his will to Jessica for safety but, when she examined it, the paper was blank.
Doom and the Toon Patrol capture Jessica and Eddie, bringing them to Acme's factory. Doom reveals he is the sole shareholder of Cloverleaf and plans to erase Toontown with a Dip-spraying machine so he can build a freeway in its place, and decommission the railway system to force people to use it. When Roger unsuccessfully attempts to save Jessica, the couple is tied onto a hook in front of the machine's sprayer. Eddie distracts the weasels by performing a comedic vaudeville act full of pratfalls, causing them to die of laughter before he kicks their leader into the Dip. Doom is flattened by a steamroller while fighting with Eddie, but he survives, revealing he is actually a disguised toon and Teddy's murderer. Struggling against Doom's toon abilities, Eddie empties the machine's Dip supply, spraying and dissolving Doom to death. The machine crashes through the wall into Toontown, where it is destroyed by a passenger train.
As police and toons gather at the scene, Eddie realizes that Acme's will was written on the blank paper in temporarily invisible ink, confirming the toons inherit Toontown. Having regained his sense of humor, Eddie happily enters Toontown alongside Dolores, Roger, Jessica, and the toons.
The film was finally green-lit when the budget decreased to $30 million, which at the time would have still made it the most expensive animated film ever produced.[16]Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg argued that the hybrid of live-action and animation would "save" Walt Disney Feature Animation. Spielberg's contract included an extensive amount of creative control and a large percentage of the box-office profits. Disney kept all merchandising rights.[16] Spielberg convinced Warner Bros., Fleischer Studios, Harvey Comics, King Features Syndicate, Felix the Cat Productions, Turner Entertainment, and Universal Pictures/Walter Lantz Productions to "lend" their characters to appear in the film with (in some cases) stipulations on how those characters were portrayed; for example, Disney's Donald Duck and Warner Bros.' Daffy Duck appear as equally talented dueling pianists, and Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny also share a scene. Apart from the agreement, and some of the original voice artists reprising their roles, Warner Bros. and the various other companies were not involved in the production of Roger Rabbit. Executives at Warner Bros. were displeased by animators using the Daffy design by Bob Clampett and demanded they use the design by Chuck Jones; in response Zemeckis had separate artists animate Daffy using Jones' design to satisfy Warner Bros., in order to have Clampett's design in the final film. The producers were unable to acquire the rights to use Popeye, Tom and Jerry, Little Lulu, Casper, or the Terrytoons characters for appearances from their respective owners (King Features, Turner, Western Publishing, Harvey Comics, and Viacom).[13][14]
Terry Gilliam was offered the chance to direct, but he found the project too technically challenging. ("Pure laziness on my part," he later admitted, "I completely regret that decision.")[17] Robert Zemeckis was hired to direct in 1985, based on the success of Romancing the Stone and Back to the Future. Disney executives were continuing to suggest Darrell Van Citters direct the animation, but Spielberg and Zemeckis decided against it.[16]Richard Williams was eventually hired to direct the animation. Zemeckis wanted the film to exhibit "Disney's high quality of animation, Warner Bros.' characterization, and Tex Avery humor."[18]
Paul Reubens originally auditioned for the role of Roger Rabbit and even provided his voice in an early 1983 screen test, but lost out.[25][26]Eddie Deezen, who had worked with Zemeckis previously, also auditioned to play Roger, but did not get the part.[27] The role was eventually given to Charles Fleischer.[25] Before filming, Fleischer was asked to come up with a speech impediment for Roger. He gave Roger a lisp and the stammering catchphrase "P-p-p-please!" as a tribute to all the other famous cartoon characters with speech impediments, which was inspired by Huntz Hall's Sach Jones in The Bowery Boys.[28][29] He had invented the "cheek flutter" while performing the voice of B.B. in Deadly Friend.[30] His portrayal of Roger was also inspired by Screwy Squirrel.[31] To facilitate Hoskins' performance, Fleischer dressed in a Roger Rabbit costume and "stood in" behind camera for most scenes.[32] Williams explained Roger was a combination of "Tex Avery's cashew nut-shaped head, the swatch of red hair... like Droopy's, Goofy's overalls, Porky Pig's bow tie, Mickey Mouse's gloves, and Bugs Bunny-like cheeks and ears."[13]
Tim Curry auditioned for the role of Judge Doom, but was rejected because the producers found him too terrifying.[34]Christopher Lee was also considered for the role, but turned it down.[20]John Cleese also expressed interest for the role, but was deemed not scary enough.[20]Peter O'Toole, F. Murray Abraham, Roddy McDowall, Eddie Deezen, and Sting were also considered for the role.[20]Christopher Lloyd was cast because he previously worked with Zemeckis and Spielberg on Back to the Future. He compared his part as Doom to his previous role as the Klingon commander Kruge in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, both overly evil characters which he considered "fun to play".[35] He avoided blinking his eyes while on camera to portray the character.[14]
Fleischer also voiced Benny the Cab, Psycho, and Greasy. Lou Hirsch, who voiced Baby Herman, was the original choice for Benny the Cab but was replaced by Fleischer.[32]
Price and Seaman were brought aboard to continue writing the script once Spielberg and Zemeckis were hired. For inspiration, the two writers studied the work of Walt Disney and Warner Bros. Cartoons from the Golden Age of American animation, especially Tex Avery and Bob Clampett cartoons. The Cloverleaf streetcar subplot was inspired by Chinatown.[13] Price and Seaman said that "the Red Car plot, suburb expansion, urban and political corruption really did happen," Price stated. "In Los Angeles, during the 1940s, car and tire companies teamed up against the Pacific Electric Railway system and bought them out of business. Where the freeway runs in Los Angeles is where the Red Car used to be."[14] In Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, the toons were comic-strip characters rather than movie stars.[13]
During the writing process, Price and Seaman were unsure of whom to include as the villain in the plot. They wrote scripts that had either Jessica Rabbit or Baby Herman as the villain, but they made their final decision with the newly created character Judge Doom. Doom was supposed to have an animated vulture sit on his shoulder, but this was deleted due to the technical challenges this posed.[14] Doom would also have a suitcase of 12 small, animated kangaroos that act as a jury, by having their joeys pop out of their pouches, each with letters, when put together would spell YOU ARE GUILTY. This was also cut for budget and technical reasons.[36]
Judge Doom (played by Christopher Lloyd) threatens Roger Rabbit before introducing him to the dip. Mime artists, puppeteers, mannequins, and robotic arms were commonly used during filming to help the actors interact with "open air and imaginative cartoon characters".
Williams admitted he was "openly disdainful of the Disney bureaucracy"[39] and refused to work in Los Angeles. Accommodating Williams and his animators, production moved to England where a studio, Walt Disney Animation UK (subsuming Richard Williams Animation), was created for this purpose;[40][41] located at The Forum, 74–80 Camden Street, in Camden Town, London, while the live-action production was based at Elstree Studios. Disney and Spielberg also told Williams that in return for doing the film, they would help distribute his unfinished film The Thief and the Cobbler.[39] Supervising animators included Van Citters, Dale Baer, Michael Peraza, Joe Ranft, Tom Sito, James Baxter, David Bowers, Andreas Deja, Mike Gabriel, Chris Jenkins, Phil Nibbelink, Nik Ranieri, Simon Wells, and Bruce W. Smith; Williams and associate producer Don Hahn spearheaded the animation production. The animation production was split between Walt Disney Animation UK and a specialized unit in Los Angeles, set up by Walt Disney Feature Animation and supervised by Baer.[42] The production budget continued to escalate, while the shooting schedule ran longer than expected. When the budget reached $40 million, Disney CEO Michael Eisner seriously considered shutting down production, but studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg talked him out of it.[39] Despite the budget escalating to over $50 million, Disney moved forward on production because they were enthusiastic to work with Spielberg.[16]
VistaVision cameras installed with motion-control technology were used for the photography of the live-action scenes, which would be composited with animation. Rubber mannequins of Roger Rabbit, Baby Herman, and the Toon Patrol portrayed the animated characters during rehearsals to teach the actors where to look when acting with "open air and imaginative cartoon characters".[32] Many of the live-action props held by cartoon characters were shot on set with the props either held by robotic arms or manipulated with strings, similar to a marionette.[14] For example, a test was shot at ILM where an actor playing the detective would climb down a fire escape and the rabbit is supposed to follow and he knocks down some stacked boxes. Naturally, there would not be a rabbit during the test, so the camera would go down the fire escape and the boxes would fall when a wire was pulled.[24] The actor who played the voice of Roger, Charles Fleischer, insisted on wearing a Roger Rabbit costume while on the set, to get into character.[32]Filming began on November 2, 1986, and lasted for seven and a half months at Elstree Studios, with an additional month in Los Angeles and at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) for blue screen effects of Toontown.[citation needed] The Dimco Buildings in London were dressed as the fictional Acme Factory.[43] The entrance of Desilu Studios in Los Angeles served as the fictional Maroon Cartoon Studio lot.[44]
Animation and post-production
Post-production lasted for 14 months.[14] ILM had already used CGI and digital compositing in a few movies, such as the stained glass knight scene in Young Sherlock Holmes, but the computers were still not powerful enough to make a complicated movie like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, so all the animation was done using cels and optical compositing.[45][32] First, the animators and layout artists were given black-and-white printouts of the live-action scenes (known as "photostats"), and they placed their animation paper on top of them. The artists then drew the animated characters in relationship to the live-action footage. Due to Zemeckis' dynamic camera moves, the animators had to confront the challenge of ensuring the characters were not "slipping and slipping all over the place."[14][32] Ensuring this did not happen and that the characters looked real, Zemeckis and Spielberg met for about an hour and a half and came up with an idea: "If the rabbit sits down in an old chair, dust comes up. He should always be touching something real."[24] After the rough animation was complete, it was run through the normal process of traditional animation until the cels were shot on the rostrum camera with no background. Williams came up with the idea of making the cartoon characters “2.5-dimensional”, and the animated footage was sent to ILM for compositing, where technicians animated three lighting layers (shadows, highlights, and tone mattes) separately, to give the characters a sense of depth and create the illusion of them affected by the set lighting.[46][32] Finally, the lighting effects were optically composited on to the cartoon characters, who were, in turn, composited into the live-action footage. One of the most difficult effects in the film was Jessica's dress in the nightclub scene because it had to flash sequins, an effect accomplished by filtering light through a plastic bag scratched with steel wool.[13]
Regular Zemeckis collaborator Alan Silvestri composed the film score, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) under the direction of Silvestri. Zemeckis joked that "the British [musicians] could not keep up with Silvestri's jazz tempo". The performances of the music themes written for Jessica Rabbit were entirely improvised by a jazz combo performing with the LSO. The work of American composer Carl Stalling heavily influenced Silvestri's work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit.[14][32] The film's soundtrack was originally released by Buena Vista Records on June 22, 1988, and reissued on CD on April 16, 2002.[47]
The film opened in the United States on June 22, 1988, grossing $11,226,239 in 1,045 theaters during its opening weekend; it was in first place at the US box office.[50] It was Disney's biggest opening weekend ever at the time of its release.[51] It went on to gross $154,112,492 in the United States and Canada and $197,387,508 internationally, coming to a worldwide total of $351,500,000.[52] At the time of release, it was the 20th-highest-grossing film of all time.[53] It was also the second-highest-grossing film of 1988, behind only Rain Man.[54] In the United Kingdom, the film also set a record opening for a Disney film.[55]
Home media
The film was first released on VHS on October 12, 1989,[56] and on DVD on September 28, 1999.
On March 25, 2003, Buena Vista Home Entertainment released it as a part of the "Vista Series" line in a two-disc collection with many extra features including a documentary, Behind the Ears: The True Story of Roger Rabbit; a deleted scene in which a pig's head is "tooned" onto Eddie's; the three Roger Rabbit shorts, Tummy Trouble, Roller Coaster Rabbit, and Trail Mix-Up; as well as a booklet and interactive games. The only short on the 2003 VHS release was Tummy Trouble. The 2003 DVD release presents the film in Full Screen (1.33:1) on Disc 1 and Widescreen (1.85:1) on Disc 2.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit received near-universal acclaim from critics, making Business Insider's "best comedy movies of all time, according to critics" list.[62] Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 96% based on 76 reviews, and an average rating of 8.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit is an innovative and entertaining film that features a groundbreaking mix of live action and animation, with a touching and original story to boot."[63] Aggregator Metacritic has calculated a weighted average score of 83 out of 100 based on 15 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[64]Who Framed Roger Rabbit was placed on 43 critics' top ten lists, third to only The Thin Blue Line and Bull Durham in 1988.[65] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[66]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four, calling it "sheer, enchanted entertainment from the first frame to the last-- a joyous, giddy, goofy celebration of the kind of fun you can have with a movie camera." He writes that the opening cartoon is "a masterpiece; I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard at an animated short. But then when a stunt goes wrong and the cartoon 'baby' stalks off the set and lights a cigar and tells the human director to go to hell, we know we're in a new and special universe."[67]Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune praised the film's "dazzling, jaw-dropping opening four-minute sequence"; he noted that the sequence alone took nearly nine months to animate.[68] Siskel gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four.[69] Ebert and his colleague Siskel spent a considerable amount of time in the Siskel & Ebert episode in which they reviewed the film analyzing its painstaking filmmaking.[70] In evaluating their top ten films of the year, Siskel ranked it number two[71] while Ebert ranked it as number eight.[72]Janet Maslin of The New York Times commented that this is "a film whose best moments are so novel, so deliriously funny and so crazily unexpected that they truly must be seen to be believed."[73]Desson Thomson of The Washington Post considered Roger Rabbit to be "a definitive collaboration of pure talent. Zemeckis had Walt Disney Pictures' enthusiastic backing, producer Steven Spielberg's pull, Warner Bros.'s blessing, Canadian animator Richard Williams' ink and paint, Mel Blanc's voice; Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman's witty, frenetic screenplay; George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic, and Bob Hoskins' comical performance as the burliest, shaggiest private eye."[74]Gene Shalit on the Today Show also praised the film, calling it "one of the most extraordinary movies ever made".[75]Filmsite.org called it "a technically-marvelous film" and a "landmark" that resulted from "unprecedented cooperation" between Warner Bros. and Disney.[76] On CNN's 2019 miniseries The Movies, Tom Hanks called it the "most complicated movie ever made."[77]
Richard Corliss, a writer for Time, said, "The opening scene upstages the movie that emerges from it". Corliss was mainly annoyed by the homages to the Golden Age of American animation.[78]Chuck Jones made a rather scathing attack on the film in his book Chuck Jones Conversations. Among his complaints, Jones accused Zemeckis of robbing Richard Williams of any creative input and ruining the piano duel that both Williams and he storyboarded.[79]
Who Framed Roger Rabbit marks the first and so far the only time in animation history that Disney's Mickey Mouse and Warner Bros.' Bugs Bunny (as well as Donald Duck and Daffy Duck) have ever officially appeared on-screen together. In order for Disney to use Warner Bros.' characters for the film, both companies came to an agreement in which the screen time for the Warner Bros. characters would be equal to that of the Disney characters.
In December 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[10]
With the film's LaserDisc release, Variety first reported in March 1994 that observers uncovered several scenes of antics from the animators that supposedly featured brief nudity of Jessica Rabbit. While undetectable when played at the usual rate of 24 film frames per second, the LaserDisc player allowed the viewer to advance frame-by-frame to uncover these visuals. Whether or not they were actually intended to depict the nudity of the character remains unknown.[102][103] Many retailers said that within minutes of the LaserDisc debut, their entire inventory was sold out. The run was fueled by media reports about the controversy, including stories on CNN and various newspapers.[104]
Another frequently debated scene includes one in which Baby Herman extends his middle finger as he passes under a woman's dress and re-emerges with drool on his lip.[103][105] In the scene where Daffy Duck and Donald Duck are dueling on pianos, some heard Donald call Daffy a "goddamn stupid nigger", rather than the scripted and recorded line "doggone stubborn little".[106][107][108]
Legal issue
Gary K. Wolf, author of the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, filed a lawsuit in 2001 against The Walt Disney Company. He claimed he was owed royalties based on the value of "gross receipts" and merchandising sales. In 2002, the trial court in the case ruled that these only referred to actual cash receipts Disney collected and denied Wolf's claim. In its January 2004 ruling, the California Court of Appeal disagreed, finding that expert testimony introduced by Wolf regarding the customary use of "gross receipts" in the entertainment business could support a broader reading of the term. The ruling vacated the trial court's order in favor of Disney and remanded the case for further proceedings.[109] In a March 2005 hearing, Wolf estimated he was owed $7 million. Disney's attorneys not only disputed the claim but also said Wolf owed Disney $500,000–$1 million because of an accounting error discovered in preparing for the lawsuit.[110] Wolf won the decision in 2005, receiving between $180,000 and $400,000 in damages.[111]
Proposed sequel
Spielberg discussed a sequel in 1989 with J. J. Abrams as writer and Zemeckis as producer. Abrams' outline was eventually abandoned.[112] Nat Mauldin was hired to write a prequel titled Roger Rabbit: The Toon Platoon, set in 1941 to 1943. Similar to the previous film, Toon Platoon featured many cameo appearances by characters from The Golden Age of American Animation. It began with Roger Rabbit's early years, living on a farm in the midwestern United States.[95] With human Ritchie Davenport, Roger travels west to seek his mother, in the process meeting Jessica Krupnick (his future wife), a struggling Hollywood actress. While Roger and Ritchie are enlisting in the Army, Jessica is kidnapped and forced to make pro-Nazi German broadcasts. Roger and Ritchie must save her by going into Nazi-occupied Europe accompanied by several other Toons in their Army platoon. After their triumph, Roger and Ritchie are given a Hollywood Boulevard parade, and Roger is finally reunited with his mother and father, Bugs Bunny.[95][113]
Mauldin later retitled his script Who Discovered Roger Rabbit. Spielberg left the project when deciding he could not satirize Nazis after directing Schindler's List.[114][115] Eisner commissioned a rewrite in 1997 with Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver. Although they kept Roger's search for his mother, Stoner and Oliver replaced the WWII subplot with Roger's inadvertent rise to stardom on Broadway and Hollywood. Disney was impressed and Alan Menken was hired to write five songs for the film and offered his services as executive producer.[115] One of the songs, "This Only Happens in the Movies", was recorded in 2008 on the debut album of Broadway actress Kerry Butler.[116]Eric Goldberg was set to be the new animation director, and began to redesign Roger's new character appearance.[115]
Spielberg became busy establishing DreamWorks, while Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy decided to remain as producers. Test footage for Who Discovered Roger Rabbit was shot sometime in 1998 at the Disney animation unit in Lake Buena Vista, Florida; the results were a mix of CGI, traditional animation, and live-action that did not please Disney. A second test had the toons completely converted to CGI, but this was dropped as the film's projected budget would escalate past $100 million. Eisner felt it was best to cancel the film.[115] In March 2003, producer Don Hahn doubted a sequel, arguing that public tastes had changed since the 1990s with the rise of computer animation. "There was something very special about that time when animation was not as much in the forefront as it is now."[117]
In December 2007, Marshall stated that he was still "open" to the idea,[118] and in April 2009, Zemeckis revealed he was still interested.[119] According to a 2009 MTV News story, Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman were writing a new script for the project, and the animated characters would be in traditional two-dimensional, while the rest would be in motion capture.[120] In 2010, Bob Hoskins had agreed to sign on for a sequel, but expressed scepticism about the use of "performance capture" in the film.[121] Zemeckis said that the sequel would remain hand-drawn animated and live-action sequences will be filmed, just like in the original film, but the lighting effects on the cartoon characters and some of the props that the toons handle will be done digitally.[122] Also in 2010, Hahn, who was the film's original associate producer, confirmed the sequel's development in an interview with Empire. He stated, "Yeah, I couldn't possibly comment. I deny completely, but yeah... if you're a fan, pretty soon you're going to be very, very, very happy."[123] Hoskins retired from acting in 2012 after a Parkinson's disease diagnosis a year earlier, and died from pneumonia in 2014.[124] Marshall confirmed that the film would be a prequel, similar to earlier drafts, and that the writing was almost complete.[125] During an interview at the premiere of his film Flight, Zemeckis stated that the sequel was still possible, despite Hoskins' absence, and the script for the sequel was sent to Disney for approval from studio executives.[126]
In February 2013, Gary K. Wolf, writer of the original novel, said Erik Von Wodtke and he were working on a development proposal for an animated Disney buddy comedy starring Mickey Mouse and Roger Rabbit called The Stooge, based on the 1952 film of the same name. The proposed film is set in a prequel, taking place five years before Who Framed Roger Rabbit and part of the story is about how Roger met Jessica. Wolf has stated the film is currently wending its way through Disney.[127]
In November 2016, while promoting his film Allied in England, Zemeckis stated that the sequel "moves the story of Roger and Jessica Rabbit into the next few years of period film, moving on from film noir to the world of the 1950s". He also stated that the sequel would feature a "digital Bob Hoskins", as Eddie Valiant would return in "ghost form". While the director went on to state that the script is "terrific" and the film would still use hand-drawn animation, Zemeckis thinks that the chances of Disney green-lighting the sequel are "slim". As he explained more in detail, "The current corporate Disney culture has no interest in Roger, and they certainly don't like Jessica at all".[128] In December 2018, while promoting his film Welcome to Marwen and given the 30th anniversary of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Zemeckis reiterated in an interview with Yahoo! Movies that though the sequel's script is "wonderful", Disney is still unlikely to ever produce it, and he does not see the possibility of producing it as an original film for the streaming service Disney+, as he feels that it does not make any sense as there is no "Princess" in it.[129] In November 2024, while promoting his latest film Here, Zemeckis again said that one of the reasons Disney will never produce the script, "as good as it is", is that Disney finds Jessica Rabbit "too hot", citing that they dressed her in a trench coat in the Disneyland attraction Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin. Zemeckis said that the original film was made at the right time.[130]
↑ The budget has been commonly reported as $70 million, including by The New York Times in 1991, which subsequently issued an erratum to state that both Amblin and Touchstone insist the budget was "about $50 million".[3] Publications of the film's accounts since then indicate that the exact production cost of the film was $58,166,000,[4] including the production overhead which came to a total of $7,587,000, putting the net cost at $50,587,000.[5]
Related Research Articles
Modern animation in the United States from the late 1980s to 2004 is frequently referred to as the renaissance age of American animation. During this period, many large American entertainment companies reformed and reinvigorated their animation departments, following the dark age, and the United States had an influence on global and worldwide animation.
Cartoon physics or animation physics are terms for a jocular system of laws of physics that supersedes the normal laws, used in animation for humorous effect.
Amblin' Entertainment, Inc., formerly named Amblin Productions, is an American film production company founded by director and producer Steven Spielberg, and film producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall in 1980. Its headquarters are located in Bungalow 477 of the Universal Studios backlot in Universal City, California. It distributes all of the films from Amblin Partners under the Amblin Entertainment banner.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is an action-adventure video game created for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Rare and published by LJN in 1989. The single-player game is loosely based on the film of the same name and had combined elements of graphic adventure computer games with some more traditional action adventure gameplay. A different version of the game was also released for various computer systems in 1988.
Mickey's Toontown is a themed land at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland, two theme parks operated by Walt Disney Parks & Resorts and The Oriental Land Company respectively. At Tokyo Disneyland, this land is named Toontown. A similar land existed at the Magic Kingdom until 2011 and was named Mickey's Toontown Fair. Walt Disney Studios Park in Disneyland Paris has a related land called Toon Studio.
Judge Doom is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, portrayed by Christopher Lloyd. He is depicted as the much-feared, cruel, and evil judge of Toontown, who later in the film is revealed as the mastermind behind the framing of the titular character and the murder of protagonist Eddie Valiant's brother.
Gary K. Wolf is an American author. He is best known as the author of Who Censored Roger Rabbit? (1981), which was adapted into the hit feature-length film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).
ImageMovers, L.L.C. (IM), is an American production company which produces CGI animation, motion-capture, live-action films and television shows. The company is known for producing such films as Cast Away (2000), What Lies Beneath (2000), The Polar Express (2004), Monster House (2006), and Beowulf (2007). From 2007 to 2011, The Walt Disney Company and ImageMovers founded a joint venture animation facility known as ImageMovers Digital which produced two motion-captured CGI-animated films: A Christmas Carol (2009) and Mars Needs Moms (2011) for Walt Disney Pictures, neither of which were financially successful.
Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin is a dark ride located at the Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland theme parks, based on the 1988 Disney/Amblin film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Both versions of the attraction are located in Mickey's Toontown. The Disneyland version opened on January 26, 1994, a year after the Mickey's Toontown area opened, and the Tokyo Disneyland version opened on April 15, 1996. In December 2021, the Disneyland version was updated to include a new plot element of Jessica Rabbit in the role of a detective who is determined to stop a crime wave in Toontown.
"The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" is a song written in 1937 by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin and published by Harms Inc., New York. It is best known as the theme tune for the Looney Tunes cartoon series and Merrie Melodies reissued cartoon series produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons, used from 1937 to 1969.
Eddie Valiant is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, and the film adaptation, Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a media franchise that began with the 1981 novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit by Gary K. Wolf. It was adapted into a feature film in 1988, produced by Amblin Entertainment and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film's success launched additional media including further books, animated shorts, comic books and video games. The franchise takes place in a world in which cartoon characters, known as "toons", co-exist with humans.
Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! is a 1931 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon short directed by Rudolf Ising. The short was released on September 5, 1931, and features Foxy, an early Merrie Melodies star.
The Tortoise and the Hare is an American animated short film part of the Silly Symphony series, released on January 5, 1935, by United Artists, produced by Walt Disney and directed by Wilfred Jackson. Based on an Aesop's fable of the same name, it won the 1934 Oscar for Best Short Subject: Cartoons. This cartoon is also believed to be one of the inspirations for Bugs Bunny by Warner Bros., who first appeared in 1940.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1991 overhead adventure game by Capcom for the Game Boy released in North America and Europe. Based on the 1988 film of the same title, it is one of the earliest games designed by Shinji Mikami.
Jessica Rabbit is a fictional character in the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? and its film adaptation, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. She is depicted as the human toon wife of Roger Rabbit in various Roger Rabbit media. Jessica is renowned as one of the best-known sex symbols in animation. She is best remembered for the line: "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way".
The Roger Rabbit shorts are a series of three animated short films produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation from 1989 to 1993. They feature Roger Rabbit, the animated protagonist from Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), being enlisted the task of caring for Baby Herman while his mother is absent, resulting in a plot defined by slapstick humor and visual gags. Each short concludes with a sequence involving live-action and animation, in which the characters interact with live-action human beings, akin to the 1988 film. Droopy Dog from MGM makes a cameo in all of the shorts.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, directed by Robert Zemeckis and featured film score composed by regular Zemeckis collaborator Alan Silvestri, who conducted the London Symphony Orchestra. The musical score was heavily influenced on Carl W. Stalling's music composed for Looney Tunes. Apart from Silvestri's score, the film also features performances of "Hungarian Rhapsody", "Why Don't You Do Right?" by Amy Irving as Jessica Rabbit, "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" by Charles Fleischer as Roger Rabbit, and a choral version of "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!" performed by the Toons.
Live-action animation is a film genre that combines live-action filmmaking with animation. Projects that are both live-action and computer-animated tend to have fictional characters or figures represented and characterized by cast members through motion capture and then animated and modeled by animators. Films that are live-action and traditionally animated use hand-drawn, computer-generated imagery (CGI), or stop-motion animation.
Roger Rabbit is a fictional animated anthropomorphic rabbit. The character first appeared in author Gary K. Wolf's 1981 novel, Who Censored Roger Rabbit? In the book, Roger is second banana in a popular comic strip, "Baby Herman". Roger hires private detective Eddie Valiant to investigate why his employers, the DeGreasy Brothers, have reneged on their promise to give Roger his own strip. When Roger is found murdered in his home, Valiant sets out to look for the killer, with the help of Roger's "doppel".
↑ Vogel, Harold L. (2010). Entertainment Industry Economics: A Guide for Financial Analysis. Cambridge University Press. p.208. ISBN978-1-107-00309-5. Production cost: 50,579; Production overhead: 7,587 (Data in $000s)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Robert Zemeckis, Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman, Ken Ralston, Frank Marshall, Steve Starkey, DVD audio commentary, 2003, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
↑ Siskel, Gene (July 3, 1988). "Tooned In". Chicago Tribune. Vol.142, no.185. p.59. Archived from the original on May 6, 2021. Retrieved March 23, 2021.
↑ Siskel, Gene (December 9, 1988). "Siskel's Flicks Picks". Chicago Tribune. Vol.142, no.344. p.179. Archived from the original on May 6, 2021. Retrieved March 23, 2021.
↑ Ebert, Roger (December 31, 1988). "The Best 10 Movies of 1988". Roger Ebert's Journal. Archived from the original on July 25, 2016. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
Bob Foster (1989). Roger Rabbit: The Resurrection of Doom. Comic book sequel between Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the theatrical short Tummy Trouble. Marvel Comics. ISBN0-87135-593-0.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
