Even before Hollywood was dominated by sequels and reboots, for years there was talk of bringing back the gang from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in some kind of follow-up.
In the years since the project fell into development limbo, the original film’s star Bob Hoskins passed away, and it seems as though the time for such a project has likely passed. During its years of quasi-development, though, apparently Star Trek and Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams was one of those to work on it.
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Slashfilm reports that this was 1989 — the first time Abrams met with Kathleen Kennedy who would later hire him for Star Wars…and how that led to a meeting with Steven Spielberg about Roger Rabbit.
“When I was 16 Kathleen Kennedy called Matt Reeves and I, to ask if we would repair these 8mm films Steven [Spielberg] had made when he was a kid,” Abrams said. “It happened because we were in a film festival and she had read about us in the LA Times. So, of course, we said yes and did the repairs. Years later I got to meet Steven. I went into a meeting…actually, it was for a Roger Rabbit sequel. It was a whole thing. I actually have some storyboards for a Roger Rabbit short. Honestly, we never really got to that phase [where it got serious]. We were writing an outline, but it honestly went away before it was anything. This was a long time ago. Zemeckis probably would’ve been a producer on it.”
He added that the process of watching an animation pitch, where people would stand before boards and play out the scene, was hilarious for the uninitiated.
