Live-action failures that could use an animated remake

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amoonz

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Now I thought it would be a nice idea to bring this up, and now I'm going to. Whenever there is a live-action movie, you expect it to be a hit right? Well in some cases there are live-action movies that are successful, but there are times where it can bomb so badly. Now what are movies that are live-action that have bombed that could be remade an animated feature, or as an animated series? I'm not talking about good live-action here, even if it did have effort put into it. Here's how it works. Name the live-action film(It has to be a box office bomb), and why you think it should get an animated remake. I'll name mine.

Catwoman- I happen to know that there was a catwoman movie, but nobody seems to be talking about it. And there may be a few people who liked it, it just ended up being a dud. Seeing how DC has been known for making animated films with their superheroes, I've always thought that they should consider doing an DTV animated film of Catwoman. If handled correctly it would be something to watch.

Howard the Duck- I know it won't even happen since Disney now owns Marvel :shrug:. But still, you think they would have taken an animated route over doing live-action for Howard the Duck. I guess Universal didn't want another lawsuit threat from Disney. I think an animated remake of Howard that is more true to the comics would be something, but I know it isn't going to happen anytime soon. Same goes for Tank Girl, The Spirit, and Scott pilgrim. All except Pilgrim have one thing in common with Howard. Good comics being wasted by horrible live-action movies that bombed, although despite that Pilgrim did bomb it was entertaining.
 
Here are a few:

Speed Racer: An anime inspired film might have been better suited, and possibly not have bombed like the live action movie did.

Batman & Robin: I have a feeling that the exact same movie, only animated, with professional VAs, might not have as painful to sit through.

Never Say Never: It's falling fast at the box office, but I think Bieber's movie would have benefitted from being produced and directed by Saturday TV Funhouse's Robert Smigel. Imagine what he could do with that concert footage only animated.
 
To be fair, we did get Batman/Mr. Freeze: Sub Zero because they were developing Batman & Robin at the time, and it definitely got more love than the theatrical movie did
 
Not many people had any love for Xanadu when it first came out, so maybe, just maybe an animated version might give it another chance. However, like any remake or adaptation, it would depend largely on the script; I don't want to watch another comedic tribute/parody that doesn't know what it's talking about, nor do I want to watch another generic in-name-only film. OTOH, I wouldn't expect it to be exactly like the original. All I could possibly want is for such a remake to have at least some semblance of the original without pandering to one group of people or another. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't think people give Xanadu enough credit. It's a fun musical fantasy film that may not make much sense, but it really isn't supposed to. It's meant to be taken at face value. You're supposed to just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. If this movie were to be remade as an animated one, all of this is all I can expect from one (that said, if "Don't Walk Away" was given a live-action segment, [i.e., in contrast to the otherwise animated movie] that would be idiotic, IMO).
 
Super Mario Bros.

...because it needed to be said. A big budget, animated Mario movie with real voice actors and real production value?

Hey, why not?
 
I'm hoping Ghibli or some high-quality traditional animation studio eventually gets to redo Dinotopia and His Dark Materials.

And of course, Brad Bird needs to get his Spirit film made.
 
I remember when I was a 7th-grader reading A Wrinkle in Time for the first time. Twisted magic, weird aliens, great characters - - crazy stuff. In a way, it's a lot like the Narnia series (even with the Christian imagery and actual biblical quotes), but it gets banned more because of the so-called witchcraft from the alien beings and daring to mix Christian themes and elements with modern science. It's one of those sci-fi tales that defined the genre. At the time, Disney was undergoing a great renaissance, and I felt that an animated version, be it an animated theatrical movie or an animated series ala Gargoyles, would have ruled if they were the animators who made it.

In 2001, in reaction to Warner's purchase of the Harry Potter franchise, Disney produced a television mini-series based on the book. It debuted in 2004 with little fanfare, and it was terrible. Ms. L'Engle, who resisted any multimedia versions of her novels for decades, was less than impressed with the final copy, and she never licensed another one of her novels to be turned into a movie or television production.

Which is a shame because if you've ever read A Wrinkle in Time or any of the other Time Quartet/Polly O'Keefe books, you can see they introduced a lot of elements found in modern sci-fi. Plus, they're fun as well. I could imagine what a studio like Ghibli (who adapted a pair of literature classics, Howl's Moving Castle and the Earthsea series, albeit with mixed results in the eyes of their creators), Madhouse (the studio behind Satoshi Kon's productions, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, and one that contributed a lot of animation to the Ghibli films I mentioned), or Nippon Animation (a classic arthouse that produced a lot of animated series and movies based on foreign novels) would do with a title like A Wrinkle in Time.
 
I would love to see an animated version of Underdog with Eric Goldberg's animation. The plot could be more of a satire of superheroes rather than the cheap superman knock-off it started out with.

I would also love to see a hand-drawn animated Popeye movie done with justice. The animation shoul be all fluid and smooth like the Fleschier shorts. I think it would be awesome.

Howard the Duck seems to be a perfect adaptation for the animated medium, preferably hand-drawn animation. Obviously, the original film failed cuz the story didnt work for the live-action medium. Imagine if they shot roger rabbit that way:sweat:

Finally, i want to see Brad Bird's The Spirit. Even though he should make more original material and get The Incredibles 2 off the ground.
 
An animated Howard the Duck would be great, but only if it completely jettisoned everything the George Lucas movie did and returned to Steve Gerber's original comic books. Then we'd have the makings for a truly great movie.

Does Watchmen count as a bomb? 'Cause I'd love to see a twelve-part animated miniseries based on the book. The orange-green-purple color scheme of the graphic novel would make for an interesting transition into animation, and with twelve one-hour episodes, you could really take the time to explore the characters much more in-depth than the live-action movie did (and with none of those annoying 300-esque slo-mo shots, either). Plus, I wanna see the squid.

Also, count me in as another Scott Pilgrim fan who wants an animated series. I even went so far as to think up my own ideas for one - I have 23 episodes in mind, which seems like a good run for a series based on a property that's kind of obscure. The show could expand on aspects of the books that were truncated or omitted from the film (i.e. Ramona's subspace portals, Envy's backstory, Stephen Stills' sexuality, Knives' family, Kim in general, and of course Scott vs. Nega-Scott, which was the only big change from the source material that kinda bugged me).
 
Ever see Terminator Salvation? It really wasn't that bad of a movie. But I could definitely go for an animated Terminator series that takes place around the same time as in the movie. Speaking of which, wasn't there a rumor a while back that some form of animated Terminator was going to be coming around???
 
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