BURBANK, CA—Warner Brothers Animation announced last week that they would be following in the footsteps of Disney by remaking all of their classic Looney Tunes shorts using ultra-high-budget, hyper-realistic computer-generated graphics. With the success of The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, and the hype surrounding The Lion King’s coming release, the WB decided it was time to bring back a few classics of their own.
“When we made the original Road Runner cartoons, we were extremely limited in what we could accomplish,” said Vice President of Animation, Brian Jones. “We didn’t have the resources to have a photorealistic coyote falling off of an actual high-definition cliff in Death Valley. We had to tell the whole story using childish line art with incredibly unrealistic falls and explosions. Now computers have caught up to our vision: a real-life coyote falling to the bottom of a cliff and getting crushed, then exploded in extremely realistic detail.”
Warner Bros.’ Road Runner is slated for a late 2019 release, followed by Last Turn at Albuquerque, Duck Amuck, and What’s Opera, Doc? Besides retelling the stories in gorgeous high-definition — where every single hair can be seen from the back of the largest movie theater — the shorts will also be converted to feature-length cartoons with emotionally satisfying through-lines. “Wile E. Coyote will be less about just trying to kill a bird and be more of an in-depth look at hunger, immigration, and the border through the eyes of this coyote’s struggle to find a meal,” said Jones. Warner Bros. also has a Pepe Le Pew film in the works to address the concerns of the #MeToo movement featuring music by the White Stripes titled Without Con-Scent.
Other planned releases include an H.R. Gigeresque take on Marvin the Martian and an epic Duck Dodgers film directed by James Gunn starring a real duck in green pajamas.
When asked if Warner would be producing any new, original material, Warner Brothers reps assured reporters that the age of new, original material in Hollywood was over and the age of recycled animals with ultra-crisp, high-definition animal hair was finally here.
Warner Bros. also admitted that by “live-action” remake they actually meant CGI.
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