By Hotel Transylvania may still be a little ways out from release, but director Genndy Tartakovsky already has his next animated project lined up: a brand new 3D animated version of Popeye, which was previously adapted in live action directed by Robert Altman and starring Robin Williams and Paul Dooley. The film will be released through Sony Pictures Animated, possibly continuing their hot/cold streak of CG films that have ranged from the awesomeness of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs to the suicide-inducing Smurfs. All this fits in somewhere around the long in-development film version of Tartakovsky’s infamous Cartoon Network series, Samurai Jack, and my constant wish for more Dexter’s Laboratory.
It makes sense that someone’s trying to bring back Popeye after many years out of the spotlight, though I can’t imagine he’s got the same kind of name recognition among kids that he used to. I never found Popeye to be a terribly interesting or funny cartoon when I was a kid, so I’m pretty on the fence about the quality of this one in general. It can’t be worse than The Smurfs, though.
Right?
[Via Variety]