Here’s a shocker. Sony, who already have a live-action/animated 3D “Smurfs” in the works with Neil Patrick Harris, Katy Perry, George Lopez, Alan Cumming and Jonathan Winters have announced they’ll be giving the same treatment to the iconic cartoon spinach eating sailor, Popeye.
Mega-producer Avi Arad is on board to produce, while writer Mike Jones is in talks to write the screenplay. Details on the plot are being kept under wraps, but all the familiar faces from the strip including Olive Oyl, Bluto and Swee’Pea are expected to appear in a film that is generically being described as one that “will cover the themes of friendship, love, greed and life, and focus on human strengths and human frailties.”
Popeye has hit the big screen once before in Robert Altman’s kinda bonkers 1980 live action version starring Robin Williams (which Paul Thomas Anderson is oddly a huge fan of; see the song/theme of PTA’s “Punch Drunk Love” film, “He Needs Me” which is actually from “Popeye” and sung by Shelley Duvall and extra credit: written by Harry Nilsson). The one positive outcome is that kids may start eating more spinach. Other than that, sitting through a big budget “Popeye” in 3D isn’t something we’re rushing to experience.