Genndy Tartakovsky’s ‘Popeye’ A No-Go
This week has been a bit topsy turvy for large animation companies as they try to leapfrog one another in the news cycle. With DreamWorks revealing the development of two new channels – one called, of all names, AwesomenessTV – for Verizon, Disney announced Frozen 2 and a new Dumbo film directed by Tim Burton in the same breath, and Sony Pictures Animation debuted its first trailer for Hotel Transylvania 2 featuring a full 120 seconds of large tower climbing and baby throwing.
It’s been an odd week.
But Sony Pictures Animation haven’t left it there. In an interview with AOL-HuffPost-owned MovieFone, Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of much loved Dexter’s Lab and Samurai Jack, director of Hotel Transylvania and the highly anticipated Popeye reboot, announced he was no longer involved with the latter project. Said Tartakovsky to MovieFone:
I was in love with what we were doing but I think the studio is going through changes and I don’t know if they want to make the Popeye that I want to make. So they’ve got to make a decision. Right now, I’m off that project.
Tartakovsky seemed like the perfect match for Popeye. The sharp, physical humour that he brought over from Cartoon Network (and reportedly ‘saved’ the original Hotel Transylvania after its long and troubled development), was well-suited to capture the essence of the original Popeye cartoons. This was confirmed early on with a glorious animation test that Tartakovsky released to the public (see below). The short was well-received and shot to the top of many people’s most anticipated animated films, blending style and humour in ways that began to realise the melding of old school animation principles with 3D characters and environments.
Unfortunately, like Popeye’s muscles without his spinach, matches made in heaven often fall flat when larger studio forces are involved. Sony Pictures Animation is obviously rethinking its approach to the film, and we will have to watch this space to see if Popeye re-emerges for the better.
What to do you think of this new development? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter. To hear more from Genndy Tartakovsky you can hear our interview in episode 6 of the Skwigly Podcast: