Who Stopped The Roger Rabbit Sequel?

While Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a beloved movie now, people who worked on the flick had a different perspective. It was in development hell. No executive or producer could agree on a vision for how the story should come together. Or how to film it.

Behind the scenes, drama nearly sank the movie in its entirety. However, powerful champions kept pushing for production on the film to start. Several people believed it would be the movie that saved Disney Animation and return it to its former glory.

Before it could do that, there would be drama within the ranks of the Disney ranks. Once production finished, though, came the real trouble. Steven Spielberg was brought onto the project and grew resentful of how the conglomerate's executives were acting.

The result was a beloved movie and a long lingering war between the business and the creative.

Optioning Success

Ron Miller, who was Walt Disney's son-in-law, was running Disney in the early 1980s. One day, he was told about a novel set to be published in 1981, a different kind of noir novel called "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?" by Gary Wolf and was advised to pick up the film rights to it. Miller saw the potential for a blockbuster, and he assigned it to staff writers after the deal closed.

As producers and writers tried to crack the story, Disney itself was dealing with corporate intrigue. Some believed that the company was ripe for a takeover. Incompetent management from Miller fueled those rumors.

During this time, the development of the movie ceased. Every once in a while, someone would mention it, but Roger Rabbit languished and seemed destined for development hell.

In 1984, Michael Eisner was installed as Chairman and CEO of the company. Along with two other newcomers, Frank Wells and Jeffrey Katzenberg, he started looking through projects in various development stages. One of the vows the trio made to the board was to cultivate movies that were bound to be massive hits to save the studio.

When they found the original script for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, each man felt there was potential for a hit with the story. All it needed was another draft of the script to make it a bit more family-friendly and the right creative team.

And they knew who they wanted to be part of the project.

Future Oscar Winners Assemble

Katzenberg and Eisner wanted Steven Spielberg to direct the project. He was coming off of two hit movies back to back, and the story seemed to be in his wheelhouse. However, Spielberg declined to direct but did agree to oversee the production. His conditions were that he got to choose the director, the studio handed over complete creative control, and asked to own 50% of the character and profit-sharing.

Katzenberg took this to Eisner and the board. Everyone agreed eagerly. Being in the Spielberg business promised huge returns, even if it cost a lot of money at first.

Spielberg hired Robert Zemeckis to direct the movie. Zemeckis had thrown his hat in the ring earlier in the process, but Miller declined to hire him when the rising director pushed back and asked why; he was informed because his last movie had been bombed.

However, Spielberg listened to the passion and vision for the movie that Zemeckis had. It lined up with what he was thinking, and the two decided to give it a go.

They hired world-famous animator Richard Williams. As the deal was coming together for him to join the creative team, an unexpected request came up. Williams wanted his movie, The Thief and The Cobbler, to be released from Disney. Nearly a decade later, he would accuse the studio of plagiarizing his film for their own flick, Aladdin.

In 1985, copyright issues threatened to derail the movie once again.

Securing The Characters

Spielberg and Zemeckis needed to secure the rights to cartoon characters owned by outside studios, most notably Warner Brothers (now known as WarnerMedia). If they were unable to get permission to use the characters, then the movie would fall apart.

Using his connections, Spielberg began working on a deal with the higher-ups at Warner Brothers. A wrench was thrown into negotiations when he was asked about screen time for each character. The honchos at WB were concerned that Disney would use their characters for cameos to drive people into the theaters but use their own creations in starring roles. To avoid that, they insisted that Bugs Bunny get as many lines of dialogue as Mickey Mouse.

Disney objected.

Asserting the control he was given, Spielberg agreed to the terms. He did talk them down for compensation, they originally asked for $7,500 per character, but he talked them down to $5,000 per character. Everyone should have been happy.

Some Disney executives were sulking, though. They were furious that Spielberg accepted the clause about Mickey and Bugs having the same amount of lines. Further fanning the flames of discontent was that the company that owned the rights to Casper The Friendly Ghost would not sign off on his use in the movie.

Battle lines were being drawn in the sand. And Roger Rabbit was in the center of the drama.

Releasing The Rabbit

After 7 years of development, Who Framed Roger Rabbit was released on June 22, 1988. It was the number one film the weekend of its release and for several subsequent weeks. For a few weeks, everyone was thrilled with the results.

Disney executives moved swiftly to greenlight a sequel. They saw value in creating a franchise. Before the release, executives sensed they had a hit on their hands and started work on a short film with Spielberg's blessing. Everyone stood to profit from the moves.

By the end of its run, the original movie made more than $300 million off a $70 million budget. Doubts about Disney's viability as a significant player were gone.

Roger Rabbit seemed to be taking over the company. He replaced Mickey Mouse on The Wonderful World Of Disney. There were talks of the company building an entire "land" for him at Disneyland. Cartoon Town was set to be one of the highlights of a visit to the amusement park.

It never opened. A dispute arose between Disney and Spielberg.

The Shorts and Short of It

The first short film, Tummy Trouble, was completed in 1989. Executives placed it in front of a family comedy they were hoping would become a franchise, Honey I Shrunk The Kids. Box office pundits agreed that Disney putting the short movie in front of the film helped fuel the main attraction's box office.

The powers that be celebrated. Their first short film in 16 years was also the most expensive they'd produced to that point, but it paid off in the extra money made by the feature-length movie.

More short films were put into development. It was agreed that they could be placed strategically in the movies that seemed to have franchise potential.

A second short Roger Rabbit movie was made. This one was set to go before Disney's summer release, Dick Tracy. Eisner was concerned about the feature being over-budget and other bad press that followed it. Spielberg insisted that they put it in front of his own summer release, Arachnophobia. It was being released by Hollywood Pictures, a division of Disney.

Eisner refused, and Roller Coaster Rabbit debuted in front of Dick Tracy. The relationship between Disney's CEO and Spielberg was at an all-time low. Neither man had a kind word to say about the other.

Hoping to salvage the relationship, Eisner put the third short movie in front of a Spielberg release, 1993's A Far Off Place. Many people had assumed that a sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit would have been released by this point. The strategy of placing short films starring the cartoon rabbit saw diminishing returns.

Spielberg was ticked off. He pulled his permission for any further use of the character.

Who Disappeared Roger Rabbit

Two stories had been hatched for a sequel. One traced Roger's beginnings as a Broadway star, another script saw Roger as a soldier in World War II. Both saw Nazis as the main villains. Spielberg had long vowed not to showcase the autocrats as the antagonists in his less serious movies. Eisner threw his hands up in frustration.

When the Oscar Winner decided to pull his permission for any further use of the character, he shut down all of the projects. Eisner enlisted a few executives on his team to attempt to convince Spielberg to re-develop the projects. He refused.

Eisner pulled most references to the character, Roger Rabbit disappeared from the public almost immediately. There would be no more appearances at any Disney owned amusement park. Nor would there be any more movies or TV shows created about the character.

Adding to the dismay surrounding the character, original author Gary Wolf sued Disney for missing royalties. In the lawsuit, he claimed they underpaid him by millions on gross receipts. Executives at Disney countered that Wolf actually owed them money because they had overpaid him.

A jury agreed with Disney. However, on appeal, Wolf won and was awarded between $180,000 and $400,000.

As with most Disney movies, there is a happy ending. Spielberg relented and allowed the company to include the film in the library for Disney+. Talks of a sequel have popped up again, though nothing is official and would take a lot of negotiating to make it happen.