It seems Robert Rodriguez will soon be back in the driver’s seat of a major studio production, but this time around there won’t be any bikini-clad women with supernatural powers or gory, ultra-stylized violence. No, this one will be a live-action remake of Hanna-Barbera’s cherished animated action-adventure franchise, Jonny Quest. Of course, Rodriguez’s filmography hasn’t been all over-the-top homages to pulp cinema, and his work with family-oriented fare has precedent in the wildly successful Spy Kids franchise, but we can be sure he will put his personal stamp on this project, just as he has done with every other.
The Jonny Quest reboot has been a protracted struggle for the folks over at Warner Bros., who have been trying to get the project off the ground since they first picked up the rights in the mid-90s. Originally director Richard Donner of Superman fame was attached to the project, then another iteration came around in 2009 that was slated to feature Zach Efron in the title role with The Rock as dashing bodyguard Bruce Banner, but that one eventually fizzled out as well. We can only hope that they get it together this time around, because an inevitable appearance by Danny Trejo would make it just that much better.
Rodriguez will be co-writing the script with Terry Rossio — who is known for writing an installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise — based on a draft by Dan Mazeau. Since its first incarnation in the mid-1960s, The Adventures of Jonny Quest has been remade in a number of different formats, from comic books to computer games. The basic storyline of an 11-year-old adventurer following his scientist father around the globe alongside Banner and his adopted brother Hadji, has proven to be a potent formula that continues lending itself to new adaptations fifty years later.
