Robert Zemeckis Explains Why WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT 2 Will Never See the Light of Day
A script for Who Framed Roger Rabbit 2 exists and is shoved away in a drawer somewhere at Disney Studios, We’ve known about this script for years, but this is a film project that is never going to get made for multiple reasons.
Director Robert Zemeckis recently was a guest on the Happy Sad Confused and during the conversation, the script written by the film’s original screenwriters Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman, was brought up and Zemekis offered some insight on it and explained why the movie will never see the light of day.
“Yeah, there’s a good script sitting at Disney, but here’s what you have to know, and you know this: the current Disney would never make Roger Rabbit today.
“So they can’t make a movie with Jessica in it. So the Seaman and Price sequel script isn’t ever going to see the light of day, as good as it is. Because look what they did to Jessica at the theme park, they trussed her in a trench coat.”
Zemeckis is referring to how Jessica wears a trench coat and fedora in the artwork for Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin rides at Disneyland parks.
Yeah, I can see how things in the script written back in the day most likely wouldn’t be politically correct in today’s climate. It also might be harder these days for Disney to partner with other companies to utilize their cartoon characters, like Warner Bros. with the Looney Tunes.
Then there’s the other issue, Bob Hoskins, who played Eddie Valiant, was a part of the story, and it just wouldn’t work now as the actor passed away back in 2014.
The filmmaker went on to say: “When the sequel was written… a lot of the story was that Eddie was no longer with us, but he would show up as a ghost in certain times. But I guess we wouldn’t be able to do it now.”
It would be weird now to bring Hoskins back as CGI ghost version of Eddie, and with all of the issues regarding bringing actors back to life with AI and CGI, it would be frowned upon.
Zemeckis previously talked about the sequel saying: "I don’t know where it fits in in their universe. There’s no princess in it, so I don’t know where that would be. There’s a wonderful script sitting at Disney that is really good, but I don’t think it’s on their radar."
Zemeckis said that the story is “more a continuation than a sequel” and that it follows Roger and Jessica Rabbit “into the next few years of period film, moving on from film noir to the world of the 1950s.”
It would’ve been cool to see this sequel get made when the timing was right, but we’ll never get to see this script brought to life.