Hey folks, Harry here... The success of the SMURFS seems to have inspired Warner Brothers to dig in their own incredible library of awesome to attempt to do something similar. Taking their characters and making CG / Live Action hybrids. Now I'm not immediately opposed to this idea. Hell, I love HONG KONG PHOOEY and MARVIN THE MARTIAN - and I could absolutely imagine great theatrical opportunities with them. Take the HONG KONG PHOOEY part of this video. The voice characterization, the design of the character... both are adequate, but of course need much finessing - but the mistake is to turn HONG KONG PHOOEY into a potty humor character. If you work to play HONG KONG PHOOEY as an Inspector Clouseau type that has crazy amazing spastic Kung Fu whiz bang... If you put together a soundtrack along the lines of KILL BILL, never use the Kung Fu Fighting song! Also - don't leave SPOT as a regular looking cat, if you're going to animate Hong Kong Phooey - then create the world that he belongs to. Spot needs to be a fat cat in a striped shirt. Now, looks like Eddie Murphy is up to take Scatman Crothers' place on this film... and with that casting, I'd actually prefer that Alex Zamm wasn't directing this. He's behind such jewels as INSPECTOR GADGET 2, BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA 2 & TOOTH FAIRY 2. Actually, if I could pick a director for HONG KONG PHOOEY, it'd be Brett Ratner. His aesthetic is actually ideal - and his love of Lalo Schifrin would be a perfect mix with this character.
As for MARVIN THE MARTIAN - I loathe the notion of MARVIN THE MARTIAN being used in this kind of film. I just wish that Paul Dini was in charge of a MARVIN THE MARTIAN film and had license to use the other Looney Tunes characters and in particular Duck Dodgers. But it has to start with a great story. First and foremost. Here's the tests that have shown up online, what do you think? HONG KONG PHOOEY was destined for a 2014 release date, whereas Marvin is in development hell - where it looks like it deserves to be.
