Woody Woodpecker Live Action Movie!

[gaastra]

Who saw this coming? Not yet in English it looks like.

[droosan]

This Brazilian film has been discussed a couple of times on Cartoon Brew .. but not yet, here (at least on the forum).

Apparently, this film was shot simultaneously in both english & portuguese, so it will presumably end-up on R1 DVD, eventually.

Illumination had been developing a 'live-action' WW feature, back in 2011 .. but I haven't heard anything about it, since. I'm not sure what direction Illumination was going, story-wise; but I bet it would've at least had more-appealing design & animation.

The thing is, I would actually like to see a (preferably fully-animated, non-live-action) Woody Woodpecker movie .. especially if it were set within the wider Walter Lantz world, with Andy Panda & friends.

Which is the opposite of what Pica Pau seems to be.

[Dacey]

Wow! This was news to me!

[EricJ]

Probably like that Top Cat movie that was a big deal in other countries but nobody over here seemed to have made.

And apart from Universal searching to keep "their" cartoon icon from disappearing, nobody seems to know what the appeal of Woody is--Is he the manic screwball from the 30's, or the insufferable sadistic wiseass from the 50's-60's? The movie doesn't really seem to care, so long as they can keep Alvin's gags of big Icon-Hybrid pratfalls going (he's stopping an evil construction project from destroying the forest, just like Yogi Bear!), and can insert other licensed characters as needed.
At the moment, looks like Illumination and Universal started the movie, but was probably shelved after Yogi and Alvin had pretty much buried said CGI-hybrid Cartoon Icon movies at the box office. We'll probably get it on Netflix, like all the other Brazilian CGI movies.

[Ben]

Another case of a studio not knowing what to do with their legacy animated characters. I'd heard about this but had completely forgotten!

Must have been the Illumination feature I remembered hearing about, but this looks like it's one of those Universal Home Entertainment things that might get a theatrical release internationally.

The designs are pretty par for the course for these "live-action" hybrids, and I don't get why they all (Scooby, Yogi, Smurfs...) have to be so ugly! I didn't mind the animation, though, it looked pretty fluid and cartoony to me (though totally not in keeping with the live approach, natch!).

A bit of a mixup, and a shame this isn't a fully animated Illumination picture, but I'd be curious to see it...however morbidly!

[gaastra]

Probably like that Top Cat movie that was a big deal in other countries but nobody over here seemed to have made.

Funny thing is the top cat movie did get a big-screen release in America! It was a bomb but still got released here. The second film based on American cartoons they made Kung fu magoo went direct to dvd however. There is a second top cat movie but I don't think it came here yet.

[EricJ]

Funny thing is the top cat movie did get a big-screen release in America! It was a bomb but still got released here. The second film based on American cartoons they made Kung fu magoo went direct to dvd however. There is a second top cat movie but I don't think it came here yet.

Thought Kung Fu Magoo was more a case of Classic Media owning the UPA character and having to do an original production to "stamp" ownership on it, like they did with those cheap Rankin-Bass Holiday knockoffs. (Which was also the idea behind the Leslie Nielsen movie, but that was more of a clearance-sale by the time Disney got it.) This would have been before the Dreamworks/Classic deal, obviously.

Warner owns TC with the other Hanna-Barbera characters, and even they didn't want him.

[Ben]

Which means Universal now owns a whole stable of characters that I bet they do nothing with!

BTW, Warners did actually distribute that Top Cat movie, in its native Mexico and internationally.