| 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[1] |
Release dates |
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Running time | 91 minutes[2] |
| Countries | United States Germany |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $80 million[2] |
| Box office | $68.5 million[2] |
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. The plot, which parodiesaction andspy films, followsBugs 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 by Warner Bros. to develop a sequel toSpace Jam (1996). It was originally developed as a direct sequel titledSpy Jam, which was intended to includeJackie Chan in the lead role. Dante, out of a personal dislike forSpace Jam, substantially developed the project to more closely represent the personalities of theLooney Tunes characters, withWalt Disney Animation Studios animatorEric Goldberg serving as the 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 for composerJerry 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 byWarner Bros. Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who nevertheless considered it an improvement overSpace Jam. It was abox-office failure, grossing $68.5 million worldwide on an $80 million budget. Warner Bros. subsequently canceled several planned related projects, including new theatrical short films. At the31st Annie Awards, the film was nominated for fourAnnie Awards, includingBest Animated Feature.
Weary of playing villain roles inBugs Bunny's films,Daffy Duck demands his own animated film, but is instead fired by Vice President of Comedy Kate Houghton. Security guard and aspiringstuntman DJ Drake is ordered to escort Daffy from the studio; in an ensuing chase,the water tower is demolished causing DJ to also be fired. 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. Damian is then captured by theAcme Corporation, led by the eccentric Mr. Chairman. DJ and Daffy then depart for Las Vegas.
Bugs' routines fail without Daffy, and Kate is told to rehire Daffy, or face termination herself. Kate and Bugs arrive at DJ's house, where they find Damian'sTVR Tuscan and use it 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, a clue to finding the diamond. Sam and his sidekicks, Nasty Canasta and Cottontail Smith, pursue DJ and Daffy for the card, but they flee with Bugs and Kate upon the Tuscan taking flight, leading to Sam accidentally blowing himself up in a storage room full of explosives. 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 finding an isolatedWalmart,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. Mother shows the group 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 DJ's group escapes. Seeing theMona Lisa's face on the card, the group conclude they must view the painting in theLouvre.
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. At that point, Granny and company reveal themselves to be Mr. Chairman, Smith andTaz in disguise. Mr. Chairman teleports everyone to the Acme headquarters 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 defeats Bugs, prompting Daffy to becomeDuck Dodgers in order 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 then uses his own bill to compress the ray gun's blast into two smaller ones through his nostrils. One of them misses Earth entirely while the other only 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 that they will be equal partners, 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 sequel toSpace Jam (1996). As development began, the film's plot was going to involve a newbasketball competition withMichael Jordan and theLooney Tunes against a new alien villain named Berserk-O!. ArtistBob 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 that Jordan had signed on in order to start pre-production. Without Jordan involved with the project,Warner Bros. was uninterested, and cancelled plans forSpace Jam 2.[4]
The film then re-entered development asSpy Jam and was to starJackie Chan. Warner Bros. was also planning a film titledRace Jam, which would have starred racing driverJeff Gordon. Both projects were ultimately cancelled. Warner Bros. eventually askedJoe Dante to directBack in Action. In the early 1990s, Dante wanted to produce a biographical comedy withHBO, calledTermite Terrace. It centered around director, filmmaker and cartoonistChuck Jones' early years at Warner Bros. 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.'"[5]
Dante agreed to directBack in Action as a tribute to Jones. He and screenwriterLarry Doyle reportedly wanted the film to be the "anti-Space Jam" as Dante disliked how that film represented theLooney Tunes brand and personalities.[6] 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."[7] Warner Bros. hiredWalt Disney Feature Animation'sEric Goldberg, most known for his fast-paced, Warner Bros.-inspired animation of theGenie inAladdin (1992), to direct the animation.
On the film, Dante stated, "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." On the subject of filming, Dante stated that each scene with animated characters would be shot three times; first a rehearsal with a fake stuffed stand-in, 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. Afterwards, the animators would start their work and put the characters in the frame. According to Dante, a "problem" occurred when the studio executives grew tired of the film's jokes and wanted them to be changed. As a result, the studio brought in twenty-five gag writers to try to write jokes that were short enough for the voice actors todub into an animated character's mouth. Despite this, the film has one credited writer.[8]
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 are different from what Dante had envisioned.[9]
Looney Tunes: Back in Action was released on November 14, 2003, but was originally planned to open earlier that summer. The film was abox office bomb, grossing $68.5 million worldwide against a budget of $80 million.[10][11]
Warner Bros. was hoping to start a revitalized franchise ofLooney Tunes media and products with the success ofBack in Action. New animated shorts andaDuck 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.
Warner Home Video releasedLooney Tunes: Back in Action onVHS andDVD on March 2, 2004. 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.[12]
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."[13] AtMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score a 64 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews[14] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[15]
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".[16]
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 composerJerry Goldsmith. Due to Goldsmith's failing health, the last reel of the film was actually scored 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 receives an "Additional Music by" credit in the closing titles of the film and "Special Thanks" in the soundtrack album credits.[17] 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.Xbox andMicrosoft Windows versions of the video game were planned, but were cancelled because of the financial failure of the film.
A racing game based on the film, titled Looney Tunes: Back in Action: Zaney Race, was released exclusively for mobile, developed and published by Warner Bros. Interactive. The game has since becomelost media, as it is no longer available to play and there are no screenshots or videos of the game available anywhere online. It is also notable for receiving 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.
