Re: A live-action version of Akira:

My vote is "Kill the heretic!"
A live action version of this wonderful movie would totally blow!

Hrrumph. I quite agree. The only possible way to make it work is if you threw a Titanic budget at it, and got the Warchowski brothers to produce and direct it. Then expect some serious cost overruns, because the effects are going to be equal in cost to the excellent actors you'd pay top dollar for.

Short that level of amibition, leave it alone you punks, whoever you are.

Grump. Rant. Rave. I'm going to go watch some more Evangelion just to wipe this horrible idea out of my mind.

KILL THE HERETIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anime should be left alone, un-Americanized, un-dubbed, and definitely un-live-actioned.

(Runs off and orders subtitled Utena with the $50 that the credit union gave to all of its members.)

Kill the Wabbit! - E. Fudd

Seriously, though, Kill the Heretic!

I think this may be the first unanimous decision that everyone here has ever made.

I've never seen Akira, so I fail to understand why such a thing would be so bad. I mean, George of the Jungle was funny.

I just realized that I accidentally selected Post message as "Anonymous". That was rather silly of me.

Jared, you obviously have a lot to learn. George of the Jungle was a comedy. They can get away with comedy cartoons as live action (sometimes anyway). But not Anime. No way.

Remakes are NEVER good ideas, not least for a film such as Akira, which is perfect just the way it is. From the visuals and story, to the wonderful score.

Hollywood must be runnin' REAL LOW on new ideas that we'll be seeing Sat. morning cartoons made into full length movies.

Already made:

Flintstones (bombed--both movies)

Rocky & Bullwinkle (bombed--even though I thought it was good)

Grinch Movie (success--but a lot of people hated it too)

Caspar (bombed)

UPCOMING MOVIES:

Scooby Doo
Josie & the Pussycats (not kidding)

Are there other examples or other rumors you heard about? Give your opinion on the past, present & future "cartoon movies"

The first Flintsones movie was cool, but the second one sucked gigantic portions of ass.

Flintstones (bombed

The first flintstones movie did not bomb
Gross:
$130.512m (USA), $228m (Non-USA), $70.753m (Rentals, USA).
That's why they made a sequel.

Same with casper, budget $55m
Gross:
$100.328m (USA), $182m (Non-USA), $49.161m (rentals, USA).
For that one they made a direct to video sequel.

Technically, the Super Mario Bros. movie can be considered a cartoon made into a live action movie.

Josie and the Pussycats, surprisingly rated PG-13, opens 4/13/01.
Scooby Doo was just about the worst thing to happen to TV cartoons. Thank heaven for Bugs Bunny.
The first Flintstones movie was awful. I thought the sequel was better. I guess I have no taste.
Will they make a "Speed Racer" movie? One of my faves when I was a kid. That I would pat $10 to see.

Only if we get to find out what happens between Speed and Trixie when we weren't looking as kids

Other catroon ideas >I< would like to see made into "real-life"....

1. Clutch Cargo
2. Space Angel
3. Speed Racer (I agree w/ Adam)
4. The Perils of Penelope Pitstop
5. The Funny Company

Inspector Gadget.... they could have done SO much better.... *sigh*

I am dead-serious when I say this... I laughed more times in "Schindler's List" than I did in "The Flintstones."

I actually enjoyed "Rocky and Bullwinkle" and "Casper."

Not looking forward to "Josie and the Pussycats." Just imagine how many 3rd World countries could have been fed with the money spent on the *preview* to that movie. The preview didn't even use the song! How can you make the movie without the song? (I know... they didn't have the rights to it at the time, but *still*...)

Scooby-Doo... I dunno 'bout that one. Are they striving for a self-referential kinda thing? The gang smoking dope? (they're constantly hallucinating, they think their dog talks to them, and Shaggy's always hungry and is willing to eat dog biscuits to satisfy his cravings). Or are they going to be serious about it (in which case... how do they explain the dog?) Regardless, they better not do away with Fred's pretty red neckerchief.

Another cartoon-turned-movie... "Masters of the Universe."

Not looking forward to the "Josie & the Pussycats" movie either. It'll probably be nothing more than a rehash of "Spice World"

Rachel Leigh Cook is hot, however. Remember her in that anti-drug PSA where she uses a frying pan to smash everything in sight?

The COMIC Josie and the CARTOON Josie are sort of different, BTW. The comic is sort of like "Archie," without an Archie character. The cartoon is like "Scooby-Doo," without a Scooby-Doo character.

Whoa, that was her smashing up the kitchen? Cool. I liked that one a lot better than the egg one.

Josie & the Pussycats got bad reviews.

Why am I not surprised?

Years ago a friend of ours told my Husband that they were going to make a Lost in Space movie and He replied "What's next? Josie and the Pussycats?" To which, every-one laughed. Imagine our suprise!

Two of the first cartoons made into feature length movies that I can remember were Transformers: The Movie and Smurfs and the Magic Flute. While I was a bit annoyed at Transformers:TM for killing off so many of my favorite characters, (not Bumblebee, though, thank god) it introduced many new ones that were also very interesting. As for the Smurfs... what can I say... I was about six or seven and loved it. Come on, all of you who were around that age watched the Smurfs, admit it!

I still consider G.I. Joe the Movie and Transformers the Movie among my favorite films, even though both could've been MUCH better without Hasbro breathing down the writers' necks. The Pokemon movies are basically longer versions of the TV show, so viewers love them or hate them accordingly. (I find them...intriguing.) But I've never been impressed by the theatrical versions of any other cartoons. I might be persuaded to enjoy a Pinky & the Brain film, but as I approach my 28th year, cartoons just don't have the pull they used to.

Brain: Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Pinky: Narf! I think so, Brain, but how are we going to convince the director to let me swim in a vat of Jell-O™?

So what does everyone think of the Akira Special Edition on dvd? I thought they did a good job cleaning up the film, and I lean toward liking the re-cast voice tracks...I always had a problem with some of the voices in Akira. Also, some minor dialogue changes have been made, enough to improve the natural "flow" of spoken language. All the improvements are fairly subtle, but effective.

Not that the original wasn't DARN good (especially considering what's come out since then, both good and bad).

Just for the record, live action is NOT the way to go with this film, IMHO.

How 'bout CLAYMATION? (HA,HA,HA!)

This has really ramped up in the past couple years with shows such as Underdog, Garfield, Transformers, and now Speed Racer. It seems that the studios are really running out of ideas

Just learned about a Gi Joe movie due to be relased in 2009. Bleh X{

HERCULOIDS would make for a cool adaptation to film. It could be done as either live-action or totally CGI.Either way the visual FX technology now exists to do a superb job for the creatures,along with everything else the plot would require.

They haven't necessarily run out of ideas; some producers might actually want to bring back things that they enjoyed when they were kids.

It depends on how they would handle it. If it was written and produced by people who respected the original material - and its fans - then I'd like to see it. The same for a movie of "Space Ghost" and several other things. OTOH, if the producers and writers got together in a pre-production meeting, and said, "OK, how can we screw this up?" - like they did with BOTH the "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica AND the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries of "Flash Gordon" - then I hope it never gets done.

They seem to really be doing it en masse as of late.