Acclaimed animation director Genndy Tartakovsky -- at the Toronto International Film Festival to promote his feature directing debut Hotel Transylvania -- gave us some insight into his plans for his upcoming Popeye film. Specifically, his vision for making an older property like Popeye connect with modern audiences.
“Well, that's the biggest challenge, that's exactly it. The only reason that I took it is that they gave me the script and I didn't like it," said Tartakovsky. "And I said, 'If you want me to do Popeye, it has to be broad physical comedy with half the dialogue that a normal movie has and you want it to be really visceral.' And they said, 'Yes, that's what we want.'"
“So that's the thing. We're going to do it like ten times more cartoony than even what we did with Hotel T because that's what Popeye is. But the biggest challenge is how do you take a tattooed, pipe-smoking sailor into today? So that's a challenge that we're definitely trying to figure out. How to make it contemporary, but not taking everything away from what's been done.”
Popeye is set to be a 3D computer-animated film to be released by Sony Pictures Animation. The screenplay is being written by Jay Scherick and David Ronn (The Smurfs), and the film is being produced by Avi Arad (The Amazing Spider-Man).
The spinach-eating sailor Popeye was first introduced in 1929 and was brought to life on the big screen once before, in Robert Altman's live-action film starring Robin Williams.
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