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Live Action ‘Jonny Quest’ Headed To The Big Screen

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 10:31 PST, May 27, 2015

Jonny Quest fans, take note: the cult animated show is headed to the big screen in live action form, and Robert Rodriguez has been tapped to helm the project.

Though an attempt to bring Jonny Quest to the screen has lain dormant for several years, it has recently picked up steam, according to the Hollywood Reporter, thanks largely to the efforts of Terry Rossio. He and Rodriguez are rewriting a Quest script originally penned by Dan Mazeau, while Dan Lin and Adrian Askarieh have been brought aboard as producers.

Wildly popular when it first premiered in 1964, Jonny Quest followed the exploits of the boy adventurer, who traveled the world with his father, Dr. Benton C. Quest. Government agent and bodyguard Race Bannon accompanied them, as did orphan Hadji, Jonny’s best friend, along with the Quest’s pet bulldog, Bandit. It remains unknown at this point who will be portraying any of those characters in the live action Jonny Quest, as CNN reports.

Despite its popularity and status as a primetime cartoon, Jonny Quest was canceled after a single season, not due to waning interest but rather the costs incurred in producing the show. Though it had a short-lived run, Jonny Quest continued on in syndication over the 1980s and 1990s, during which time cartoon revivals and comic book versions of the characters’ exploits emerged.

Work on a big screen Jonny Quest began after Ted Turner purchased the Hanna-Barbera library in the early 1990s, with Richard Donner and Lauren Shuler Donner initially involved in the project. Another attempt at a theatrical adaptation was made in 2007, setting the roots for the current film. It was at that time that Lin and Askarieh, as well as Mazeau, began working on the project.

The announcement of a live action Jonny Quest was met with surprise by fans, some of whom celebrated the idea, while others criticized it. Despite the mixed reaction, the film is hardly the first cartoon adaptation to stoke controversy among fans recently. As the Inquisitr previously reported, the Jem and the Holograms trailer starkly divided acolytes of the original show when it was revealed several weeks ago.

Though there is no word yet on when the film will hit theaters, fans have pointed to Rodriguez’s previous work on the Spy Kids franchise to assert that this time, Jonny Quest may have found the right fit in a director.

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