Wherein Dave expresses his pleasure that he bought the DVD set of the original series

Because I fear the movie adaptation is going to suck chunks.

Always wearing the scoop badge, Robert came back with an exclusive bit of upcoming film news : Seems Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, “Race” director Andy Fickman, and “High School Musical” moppet Zac Efron are teaming up for a feature film version of the cartoon classic “The Adventures of Johnny Quest”!

For those that don’t recall, the animated series (first aired in the 60s) told of a boy, 11-year-old Jonny, who accompanies his father, Dr. Benton Quest, on extraordinary adventures. Fearing Jonny could end up in the wrong hands, a special agent / bodyguard / pilot from Intelligence One Government, Race Bannon, is hired to guard and train him.

Zac Efron will play the title role, with Dwayne Johnson as his Race Bannon.

‘’ I love the script, I love working with Andy…’’, Johnson tells Moviehole. “I don’t know if you’ve read the latest [draft] but it’s awesome and it’s badass and I haven’t read, this is what I told everyone over at Warner Bros., and I love the studio too by the way, you know, I had my experience with them with Get Smart and they were great, I hadn’t read an action script like that in a LONG time. And that action was unbelievable. That will happen.’’

Johnson confirms that he’ll be Race Bannon, and that rumours suggesting Zac Efron might be Johnny Quest are on the money. Efron isn’t a lock though – and Johnson’s all ears. You see, in the source material the character is only twelve years old, but Efron’s 17. ‘’I loved Jonny Quest when I was a kid. If you go a little older, it gives you more, it allows you to be…it just gives you a bit more, you know. But then you want to honor it too, so… “

1. Get Smart was awful. Rather, it was awful as an adaptation of the TV series Get Smart. Taken for itself it was merely mediocre.

2. Jonny Quest as a 17-year-old is a lot less interesting than the original concept. It’s doable, I suppose — the Real Adventures of Jonny Quest weren’t awful — but, really, half the time the fun is in the plot and what the grups are doing, not Jonny and Hadji. 

3. The charm of JQ — both in the original and in retrospect — stem from the charm of the B-movie. Every episode is a godawful concept from the 30s-50s, rendered for a kid’s cartoon (and thus both more sophisticated than 90% of cartoon writing until the late 90s and simultaneously appallingly unsuitable for modern politically correct audiences today). How they will capture that with (whomever) and the Rock is a great puzzlement.

*sigh*

(via BD)