| Looney Tunes: Back in Action | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Joe Dante[a] |
| Written by | Larry Doyle |
| Based on | Looney Tunes byWarner Bros. |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Dean Cundey |
| Edited by |
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| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures[2] |
Release dates |
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Running time | 90 minutes[3] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $80 million[4][5] |
| Box office | $68.5 million[4] |
Looney Tunes: Back in Action is a 2003 Americanlive-action animatedcomedy film directed byJoe Dante and written byLarry Doyle. The film starsBrendan Fraser,Jenna Elfman andSteve Martin, withTimothy Dalton,Joan Cusack, andHeather Locklear in supporting roles. Aparody ofaction andspy films, the plot followsLooney Tunes charactersBugs Bunny andDaffy Duck as they become intertwined in a plot by theAcme Corporation's chairman to transform the world's population into subservient monkeys using the Blue Monkey diamond. They accompany aspiring stuntman DJ Drake andWarner Bros. executive Kate Houghton on their journey to thwart the chairman's plot, which doubles as a mission to rescue the former's abducted father, Damian.
The film was the result of multiple attempts byWarner Bros. to develop asequel toSpace Jam (1996). It was originally produced asSpy Jam, which was intended to starJackie Chan in the lead role. Dante, out of a personal dislike forSpace Jam, substantially developed the project to more closely represent the original personalities of theLooney Tunes characters, withWalt Disney Animation Studios animatorEric Goldberg serving as animation director. However, Dante reportedly had no creative control on the project, and the final film became different from what he intended. The film was the last project byWarner Bros. Feature Animation and the final film scored by composer and Dante collaboratorJerry Goldsmith, who died eight months following its release;John Debney composed additional material for the score.
Looney Tunes: Back in Action premiered on November 9, 2003, and was theatrically released in the United States on November 14. The film received mixed reviews from critics and was abox-office failure, grossing $68 million on an $80 million budget. Due to the film's financial failure, Warner Bros. subsequently canceled several plannedLooney Tunes projects, including new theatrical short films. At the31st Annie Awards, the film was nominated for fourAnnie Awards, includingBest Animated Feature.
Weary of playing second fiddle toBugs Bunny,Daffy Duck demands his own animated film, only to be fired byWarner Bros.' Vice President of Comedy, Kate Houghton. Security guard and aspiringstuntman DJ Drake is ordered to escort Daffy from the studio, but Daffy escapes and thewater tower is destroyed in the ensuing chase, resulting in DJ's dismissal. Daffy follows DJ home, where the latter receives a message from his father, actor Damian Drake, who DJ learns is asecret agent. Damian tells DJ to travel toLas Vegas, contact his associate Dusty Tails, and find the "Blue Monkey" diamond before he gets captured by theAcme Corporation, led by Mr. Chairman. DJ and Daffy depart for Las Vegas.
Bugs' routines fail without Daffy, so Kate is ordered to rehire Daffy or face termination herself. Kate and Bugs arrive at DJ's house, where they find and use Damian'sTVR Tuscan in pursuit of DJ and Daffy. In Las Vegas, DJ and Daffy meet Dusty in a casino owned byYosemite Sam, who is employed by Acme. Dusty gives them a unique playing card, which provides a clue to finding the diamond, before Sam and his henchmen, Nasty Canasta and Cottontail Smith, pursue DJ and Daffy for the card, but they escape with Bugs and Kate aboard the Tuscan taking flight. When the Tuscan crashes in a desert, the group camps out for the night while Bugs fails to convince Daffy to take his job back, with the latter revealing he envies Bugs for being so popular with so little effort, and wishes it were like that for himself. The next day, after the group findsWalmart,Wile E. Coyote tries in vain to steal the card from the group.
The group eventually discoversArea 52, run by a woman known as Mother, who shows them a short film about the Blue Monkey, which can devolve humans into monkeys. She then equips the group with spy gadgets for their mission.Marvin the Martian, imprisoned in the facility, leads a group of other imprisoned aliens to try to steal the card, but the group escapes. Seeing theMona Lisa's face on the card, the group conclude they must view the painting in theLouvre inParis.
At the Louvre, the group discover that the card contains a viewing window for theMona Lisa and use it to discover a hidden map ofAfrica.Elmer Fudd appears and chases Bugs and Daffy through several paintings to obtain the card. Meanwhile, Kate is kidnapped byBeaky Buzzard and Smith, Mr. Chairman's bodyguard. DJ rescues Kate, while Elmer disintegrates into tiny dots after emerging from apointillist painting.
The group travels to Africa and meetGranny,Sylvester andTweety, who escort them to the ruins of a jungle temple containing the Blue Monkey. There, Granny and company reveal themselves to be Mr. Chairman, Smith andTaz in disguise. Mr. Chairman teleports everyone to Acme and tricks DJ into giving him the diamond in exchange for Damian's release, with him going back on his word once the diamond is in his hands.
Marvin is sent to place the diamond in an Acme satellite's ray gun; with it, Mr. Chairman plans to turn everyone on the planet but himself into monkeys to make his products before reversing the effects so they can purchase them. DJ and Kate face off against a robotic dog and rescue Damian from one of Wile E. Coyote's death traps, while Bugs and Daffy chase Marvin into space. Marvin battles Bugs while Daffy becomesDuck Dodgers to stop the ray gun. Bugs manages to fight back and defeats Marvin by plugging his finger into his gun, imprisoning him inside his own bubble. Daffy uses his own bill to compress the ray gun's blast into two smaller ones through his nostrils. One of them reaches Earth and transforms Mr. Chairman into a monkey, leading to his arrest. Bugs and Daffy return to Earth, where it is revealed that the preceding events were staged. Bugs promises Daffy they will be equal partners, just before the latter is flattened by the Looney Tunes rings.Porky Pig attempts to close the film with "That's all, folks!", but the studio closes before he could say it, much to his indignation.
Looney Tunes: Back in Action was initially developed as a direct sequel toSpace Jam (1996). As development began, the film's plot was going to involve a newbasketball competition withMichael Jordan and theLooney Tunes characters against a new alien villain named Berserk-O!.Bob Camp was tasked with designing Berserk-O! and his two henchmen.Joe Pytka would have returned to direct andSpike Brandt and Tony Cervone signed on as the animation supervisors. However, Jordan did not agree to star in a sequel. According to Camp, a producer lied to the studio, claiming Jordan had signed onto the film to startpre-production. Without Jordan involved with the project,Warner Bros. was uninterested and cancelled plans forSpace Jam 2.[10]
The film then re-entered development as aspy film titledSpy Jam, which was to starJackie Chan. Warner Bros. was planning an additional film titledRace Jam, which would have starred racing driverJeff Gordon. After both projects were ultimately cancelled, Warner Bros. eventually askedJoe Dante to directLooney Tunes: Back in Action. In the early 1990s, Dante planned to direct abiographicalcomedy film withHBO calledTermite Terrace, which centered aroundLooney Tunes animatorChuck Jones' early years atWarner Bros. Cartoons in the 1930s. On the project, Dante recalled, "It was a hilarious story and it was very good except that Warner Bros. said, 'Look, it's an old story. It's got period stuff in it. We don't want that. We want to rebrand our characters and we want to doSpace Jam.'"[11]
Dante agreed to directBack in Action as a tribute to Jones. He and writerLarry Doyle reportedly wanted the film to be the "anti-Space Jam", as Dante disliked how that film represented theLooney Tunes brand and personalities.[12] Dante said, "I was making a movie for them with those characters [Looney Tunes: Back in Action] and they did not want to know about those characters. They didn't want to know whyBugs Bunny shouldn't dohip-hop. It was a pretty grim experience all around."[13] Warner Bros. hiredWalt Disney Feature Animation'sEric Goldberg, known for his fast-paced, Warner Bros.-inspired animation of theGenie inAladdin (1992), to direct the animation.[14]
Actors and actresses cast for the film includedBrendan Fraser,Jenna Elfman,Steve Martin,Timothy Dalton,Joan Cusack,Heather Locklear, and Don and Dan Stanton.[15][16][17][18] Fraser and Elfman, who played DJ Drake and Kate Houghton, respectively, stated that they were fans ofLooney Tunes growing up, watching the cartoons on television during their childhood.[19][20][21] Fraser consideredBugs Bunny his favorite character.[19] He also came up with the idea of DJ as the stuntman of a fictionalized version of himself, who he later encounters and punches at the end of the film.[21] This was done to poke fun at the injuries that Fraser had suffered from doing his own stunts. Fraser stated, "I wanted to take the piss out of myself before someone else would, 'cause I had it in my head that I had it coming." He called the scene where DJ punches the fictionalized Fraser "[his] vision of the worst version of [himself]".[22] Elfman revealed that her character Kate was a parody ofJames Bond andIndiana Jones.[18] Martin's character Mr. Chairman was originally written as a "kind of straight arrow corporate villain", but he had an idea for the character to have a "supernerd" appearance and costume inspired byBill Gates.[21]Matthew Lillard andJeff Gordon make cameo appearances in the film as themselves; Lillard appears interacting withScooby-Doo andShaggy Rogers, the latter of whom criticizes Lillard for his portrayal of the character in the2002 live-action film,[18] and Gordon appears in the Las Vegas scene, whereYosemite Sam, Nasty Canasta and Cottontail Smith steal his #24 DuPontChevrolet Monte Carlo.[23][24]John Cleese was planned to make a cameo appearance in the Paris scene, but said cameo was cut.[25]Britney Spears was considered to make a cameo appearance.[26]
Goldberg produced an early animation test for the film, withGreg Burson voicing Bugs Bunny andDaffy Duck.[27] For the film itself,Billy West andJeff Bennett were originally cast as Bugs and Daffy, but were replaced byJoe Alaskey.[28][29] Alaskey re-recorded the characters' lines, save for some vocal effects like Bugs' screaming and Daffy's "woo-hoos",[8][7] and one line for Bugs which was done by Goldberg.[9] He also provided the voices ofSylvester,Beaky Buzzard andHarrietta Bear.[17] Despite the recast, West was kept in the role ofElmer Fudd.[30]Bob Bergen was cast asPorky Pig andTweety. Due to creative differences with Doyle, he quit production, but was told by his agent that he had been fired. Doyle would later be fired from production, and Bergen was later asked to return to work on the film.[31][32] Bergen recorded Tweety's lines, before they were re-recorded by Goldberg.[33] Goldberg also provided the voices ofSpeedy Gonzales andMarvin the Martian.[34]Maurice LaMarche recorded lines for Yosemite Sam, but his voice was weak from a previous project, so he was replaced with Bennett.[35] At one point during production, Fraser did an imitation of theTasmanian Devil, and was allowed to provide the character's voice.[19][21] He also voiced theTasmanian She-Devil.[17]
On the film, Dante explained, "It's a gagfest. Not having a particularly strong story, it just goes from gag to gag and location to location. It's not a particularly compelling narrative, but, of course, that's not where the charm of the movie is supposed to lie."[36] On the subject of filming, Dante stated that each scene with animated characters would be shot three times; first a rehearsal with fake stuffedstand-in puppets, then with nothing in the frame, and lastly, with a "mirror ball" in the shot to indicate to the computers where the light sources were.[36][37] Fraser found filming with the puppets easier as an actor.[37] The puppets were originally designed by Pete Brooke, Phil Jackson andDavid Barclay atJim Henson's Creature Shop. The puppets proved too large to use as reference for the characters, so Barclay rebuilt and re-sized them under Warner Bros.' supervision and independent of the Creature Shop. He andBruce Lanoil operated the puppets and provided scratch track voices.[38][39] Afterwards, the animators would begin working and put the characters in the frame. According to Dante, a "problem" occurred when Warner Bros. executives grew tired of the film's jokes and wanted them to be changed, so the studio brought in 25 gag writers (includingJohn Requa andGlenn Ficarra[40]) to try writing jokes that were short enough for the voice actors todub into an animated character's mouth. Despite this, the film has one credited writer.[36] Characters such asRalph Phillips,Superman (in his design from the1940s Fleisher Studios cartoons) andBlossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were planned to make cameo appearances in the film.[41] The robot dog, animated incomputer-generated imagery, was added to the film's finale by the studio to give it some more action and drama. Dante and Goldberg redesigned the dog to have him resemble Chuck Jones' style.[42]
Dante stated that he had no creative freedom on the project, and called it "the longest year and a half of my life". Dante felt that while he and Goldberg managed to preserve the original personalities of the characters, the opening, middle and end of the film were different from what Dante had envisioned.[43]
Warner Home Video releasedLooney Tunes: Back in Action onVHS andDVD on March 2, 2004.[44] The film was re-released on DVD in separatewidescreen (2.35:1) andfull screen (1.33:1) editions on September 7, 2010. It was also released onBlu-ray with bonus features on December 2, 2014. A double DVD andBlu-ray release, paired withSpace Jam, was released on June 7, 2016.[45]
Looney Tunes: Back in Action was planned to be released in the summer of 2003, but was pushed to November 14. Upon release, the film was abox-office bomb, grossing only $68.5 million worldwide against a budget of $80 million.[46][47]
Warner Bros. was hoping to start a revitalized franchise ofLooney Tunes media and products with the financial success ofBack in Action. New animated shorts[48][49] and aDuck Dodgers TV series were commissioned to tie-in withBack in Action. However, due to the film's financial failure, theLooney Tunes franchise remained primarily on television for nearly two decades. Warner Bros. would not produce another theatricalLooney Tunes film untilSpace Jam: A New Legacy, which was released in 2021.
On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 58% based on 135 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "The plot is a nonsensical, hyperactive jumble and the gags are relatively uninspired compared to the classicLooney Tunes cartoons."[50] AtMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score a 64 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[51] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[52]
Chicago Sun-Times criticsRoger Ebert andRichard Roeper gave the film "Two Thumbs Up"; Roeper called it a "cheerful and self-referential romp blending animation with live action in a non-stop quest for silly laughs", while Ebert called it "goofy fun".[53]
The film was nominated for aSaturn Award for Best Animated Film, anAnnie Award for Best Animated Feature and aSatellite Award for Best Animated or Mixed Media Feature.
This was the final film scored by Dante's collaboratorJerry Goldsmith. Due to Goldsmith's failing health, the music in the last reel of the film was composed byJohn Debney, though Goldsmith was the only credited composer in marketing materials and theVarèse Sarabande soundtrack album only contains Goldsmith's music (although the first and last cues are adaptations of compositions heard in Warner Bros. cartoons). Debney received an "Additional Music by" credit in the closing titles of the film and "Special Thanks" in the soundtrack album credits.[54] Goldsmith died in July 2004, eight months after the film's release.
Looney Tunes: Back in Action has atie-in platform video game of the same name which was developed byWarthog Games and published byElectronic Arts forPlayStation 2,GameCube andGame Boy Advance.[55]Xbox andMicrosoft Windows versions of the video game were planned, but were cancelled because of the financial failure of the film.
Aracing game based on the film, titledLooney Tunes: Back in Action: Zaney Race, was developed and published for mobile devices by Warner Bros. Interactive. It received a negative review byIGN, who criticized the game for its graphics and controls, and gave the game a rating of 0.5 out of 10, making it the lowest rated title on their website.[56]
