Hahn: ‘Rabbit’ Sequel Not Going to Happen
LOS ANGELES – Don’t expect to see Roger Rabbit in a sequel ó getting co-stars Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Betty Boop and Porky Pig together again would be too difficult for producers.
“It was never in the cards, we could never get the planets back into alignment,” co-producer Don Hahn said in an interview to promote Tuesday’s DVD release of the original film. “There was something very special about that time when animation was not as much in the forefront as it is now.”
“Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” directed by Robert Zemeckis, became a $156 million hit in 1988 with its mix of live-action detective noir and cartoon silliness.
Bob Hoskins starred as a gumshoe investigating a murder case to prove the innocence of the rambunctious bunny (voiced by Charles Fleischer). Kathleen Turner supplied the smoky voice of Roger’s bombshell cartoon wife, Jessica.
Although Roger was an original character conceived by author Gary K. Wolf, the Disney film was populated with some of Hollywood’s most celebrated ink-and-paint actors, including the rival Warner Bros. studio’s Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam and Tweety Bird.
Steven Spielberg executive-produced the project and helped secure the rights to many of those characters.
The success of “Roger Rabbit,” however, made it more complicated ó and expensive ó to get those properties again, although the studio continued to develop sequel ideas for years.
“There were ideas about how Roger got to Los Angeles, how he met Jessica. Musical ideas, how he came to the Broadway stage,” Hahn said. “There were lots of ideas knocking around but nothing that ever got far enough to develop and make into a movie.”
Roger appeared in three short films, 1989’s “Tummy Trouble,” 1990’s “Roller Coaster Rabbit” and 1993’s “Trail Mix-Up,” but Hahn said there are no longer plans to bring the character back for a feature film.
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