Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Failed Movie Attempts

You all might remember those retro cartoons from the 70's and 80's that aired on Saturday mornings. Recently, I've noticed a lot of the films that have launched into theaters and are based off the cartoons that you grew up with. Films such as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) did quite well with fans. However, newer films based on some old cartoons have not done well.

  • Universal's Pictures produced The Flintstones (1994) and Josie and the Pussycats (2001).
  • Warner Bros. did Scooby-Doo (2002).
  • 20th Century Fox made Garfield (2004) Fat Albert (2004) and Alvin and the Chipmunks (1994).
  • Walt Disney Studios featured Mr. Magoo (1997), George of the Jungle (1997) and Inspector Gadget (1999).
  • Japanese cartoons like Speed Racer (2008) and Dragonball Evolution (2009).
The king of all of these live action duds would have to go to DreamWorks' Transformers. The designs are well done in CGI animation, but the film lacks development of story and characters. Not one single robot got enough screen time to show any human traits or character development, and the film focused more on the explosions and carnage.


Source of Images from: movieberry.com

Unfortunately, what all of the above mentioned films have in common is that they were poorly written, and in the end they did not do well at the box office. Sometimes it is best to leave a cartoon just that and not have it made into a real life movie. The studios probably thought they could make money off the popularity of the original cartoon but in the end might have wanted to reconsider.

Each movie poster belongs to it's rightful studio.

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