Because of the success of
Transformers, movie studios have moved on from filming mediocre features based on sitcoms (
Bewitched,
The Honeymooners) to making equally mediocre projects based on cartoons from the '80s, a rather lousy era for animation (except for
Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, I can't think of an '80s cartoon that ever approached the caliber of later shows like
The Simpsons or
Batman: The Animated Series). New Regency wants to launch its own
Transformers-like franchise with
Voltron, while
Italian Job remake co-stars Mark Wahlberg and Jason Statham are rumored to be reuniting for a
G.I. Joe film. Tobey Maguire's production company just bought the film rights to
Robotech, the
Roots of mecha cartoons (trying to squeeze
Robotech into a two-and-a-half-hour live-action feature would be like trying to make a two-and-a-half-hour film out of, well,
Roots). News items about long-delayed
Thundercats and
He-Man adaptations continue to haunt viewers like me who grew up watching those cartoons but don't think they've aged well--or would make for great live-action films either.
The
He-Man franchise already blew it once with Cannon Films' 1987 Dolph Lundgren vehicle
Masters of the Universe.
The Mattel higher-ups expressed their shame about releasing toys that contain dangerous amounts of lead. If only they were equally apologetic about the
Masters of the Universe movie, which isn't as poisonous but can induce seizures in viewers who are unable to sit through a Cannon Film, especially one that features so many flashy and annoying laser ray effects.
Hollywood needs to stop turning to the RetroJunk site for movie ideas. If there's one animated series that I'd like to see adapted to film--hell, I'd just be glad to see it return in any form other than comics--it'd be the lesser-known
Megas XLR (2004-05), a too-short-lived Cartoon Network
giant robot spoof that was sharper and more entertaining than the '80s cartoons it parodied. (Titmouse, the studio that created
Megas, is currently busy producing Adult Swim's delightfully gory
Metalocalypse.)
Megas is the story of Coop Cooplowski, a Jersey schlub who stumbles upon the future's most coveted superweapon--a giant robot that its time-traveling female pilot, Kiva, hid in Earth's past from extraterrestrial baddies. A live-action
Megas movie would be the perfect vehicle for
Tyler Labine, a scene-stealing veteran of good but short-lived shows like
Dead Last,
Kevin Hill and
Invasion (hopefully, Labine's much-buzzed-about
Reaper won't join that list). Labine was born to play Coop, and he even sounds like
David DeLuise (Dom's son), who voiced the lazy but bright gearhead on the cartoon.
Megas' Kevin Smith-meets-
Robotech premise has tons of potential as a live-action feature (unless any one of the filmmaking geniuses listed in the
A.V. Club's "10 Directors You Didn't Know You Hated" article gets his mitts on
Megas--then the movie's really in trouble), and unlike the overlong, overstuffed
Transformers, it wouldn't take over an hour for the lead robot to finally appear.
