Tom and Jerry Movie?

Warner Bros. Bringing Classic Hanna-Barbera Cartoon To Screen

Jan 23, 2009 Dominic von Riedemann

Warner Bros. announced that they want to turn the classic Tom and Jerry into a live-action plus CGI movie.

Warner Bros. is bringing the classic cartoon Tom and Jerry to the silver screen.

According to Variety, the studio is revisioning the feuding cat and mouse as CGI animals that chase each other around a live-action setting. Producer Dan Lin (The Departed, Sherlock Holmes) is developing the property as an origins tale: Tom and Jerry meet, immediately start hitting each other with large objects before they get lost in Chicago and are forced to band together in order to survive. Eric Gravning (B-Minor, Mr. Burnout, Class Act) is writing the script.

Warner owns the copyrights to all Hanna-Barbera cartoons (despite the fact that they were initially made for MGM), and is planning on bringing 2 other animated properties to the big screen. Director Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Spy Kids) is taking on The Jetsons, while producer Donald De Line (Body of Lies) is developing Yogi Bear.

Warner Bros. Hit With Scooby-Doo, Fox With Alvin and the Chipmunks

Warner Bros. has had some success with updating classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons for the big screen. The company's 2002 live-action-plus-CGI film Scooby-Doo and its 2004 follow-up, Monsters Unleashed, earned $457 million worldwide, enough to justify a direct-to-DVD sequel.

And last winter, Twentieth Century Fox had a surprise blockbuster with a similar take on Alvin and the Chipmunks, which earned $360 million. Not surprisingly, Fox has already greenlit a "squeakwel," possibly featuring the female Chipettes.

Tom and Jerry Award-Winning Hanna-Barbera Cartoon

Tom and Jerry were the feuding cat and mouse that put William Hanna and Joseph Barbera on the animation map in 1940. The shorts featured Jerry, a clever mouse, outwitting the bad-tempered cat Tom. Originally conceived as a one-off, the first animated short – called "Puss Gets the Boot" – became an Oscar-nominated sleeper hit and its creators were immediately put to work making more Tom and Jerry cartoons.

Hanna and Barbera eventually produced 114 shorts featuring the cat and mouse, before MGM commissioned the controversial Gene Deitch versions in the 1960's.

Despite the virtually identical storylines in Tom and Jerry, the series was massively successful. Twelve other shorts received AMPAS nominations for Best Short Subject, with 7 winning the Oscar. That meant that Tom and Jerry tied with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies for the most number of wins in that category.

Tom and Jerry later inspired cartoonist Matt Groening to create the even more over-the-top Itchy and Scratchy, the "cartoon within a cartoon" that regularly appeared on The Simpsons. Itchy and Scratchy also featured a mouse tormenting a cat, but ramped up the violence.

The copyright of the article Tom and Jerry Movie? in Animated Films is owned by Dominic von Riedemann. Permission to republish Tom and Jerry Movie? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.