The Long-Awaited Animated Adaptation of THE GOON is Going Back Into Development
For over ten years an animated adaptation of Eric Powell’s Dark Horse comic book series The Goon has been in and out of development. There has been radio silence on the project for about seven years. The last we heard a Kickstarter campaign was launched and succeeded so that they could create an animated story board with voice actors, sound effects and music to help sell the film to potential investors.
Well, that Kickstarted recently gave the exciting update that The Goon is officially back in production at Blur Studios and 20th Century Fox, which as you know, is now Disney owned. Deadpool director Tim Miller is a producer on the project as is David Fincher. Here’s the announcement:
As loyal fans, we wanted you folks to be the first to know… THE GOON feature is officially in development at 20th Century Fox! And we owe a huge debt of thanks to you, our backers, for keeping the faith during this long journey. You helped us keep the dream alive. Without you, we couldn’t have gotten this far.
With your generous contributions, we were able to finish a full storyboard animatic of the film, complete with amazing voice acting, sound design, and music. This template for the film sold the producers and studio on the potential of THE GOON and we're beginning a new round of development.
So, what exactly does “development” mean? Well, it doesn't mean that we're making the movie next week -- the proverbial Hollywood "green-light" always happens in phases -- but it does mean we've got fresh wind in our sails, the resources of a studio and some "heavy-hitter" producers behind us. It's the next, necessary step along the path to making the film.
Which producers you may ask? It's The Chernin Group and they’ve brought us movies such as the PLANET OF THE APES franchise, RED SPARROW and OBLIVION. They love the project and we're all excited about this next phase and continues the collaboration with the fabulous Eric Powell, David Fincher, and all the folks at Blur Studio.
Thank you all again. More updates coming as they happen!
When the project was originally in development, Clancy Brown and Paul Giamatti were voicing the two main characters from the story. Brown would new voicing The Goon, and Giamatti would be voicing Frankie. Hopefully they’re still involved! Here’s the synopsis:
The story is about the adventures of the Goon, a muscle-bound brawler who claims to be the primary enforcer for the feared mobster Labrazio. The Goon (and his sidekick Franky) often get tied up in other machinations, often in relation to the evil zombie gangs under the command of the Nameless Zombie Priest. The series has a distinctly paranormal slant, with the average story concerning ghosts, ghouls, skunk-apes with an unnatural hunger for pie, extra-dimensional aliens, and mad scientists.
You can watch a previously released concept trailer below, which fans flipped over when it was first released. I’m excited that this project is in development. Hopefully it actually gets made this time around!