Topic:
When Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which turned 30 this year, cast human actors alongside a band of rubbery, spring-loaded, zany-violent cartoon characters, it was taking a massive risk: the film went way over budget by around $28 million, attempting technical feats of animation that had never been pulled off before to make the cartoons and humans look like they were really shooting and pawing at one another. But it paid off, taking in $156 million (coming in second only to Rain Man in profits that year) and winning three Oscars.
A brilliant movie and not just for the technical achievements.
Everything about Roger Rabbit was genius: the screenplay, animation, and Bob Hoskins was incredible. I loved the movie and re-watch it from time to time.
Set aside for a moment the brilliant technical achievements and the terrific performances on the part of both actors and animators. Set aside the insanely muscular homage to Winsor McCay, the Fleischer Brothers, and Old Walt for combining live-action with animation in something that people could enjoy.
Just the sheer effort of wrangling all those diversely scattered character properties and nailing them down in a contract they could all live with. Good ghod. The Bugs Bunny/Mickey Mouse scene alone was the entertainment equivalent of a strategic arms-reduction negotiation between entire countries.
Right, how the heck did they get through all that contract stuff? I’d forgotten about the Fleischer/Betty Boop homage… it was deep….
Seeing it in a movie theater during its firs run was miraculous. IIRC, 6 years before toy story.
I want to say Cinefex magazine did a great in-depth article on all of these factors, way back when I was still subscribing.
Mainstream articles praising the movie’s technique could barely get past Disney’s latter-decade combined live action/animated films (and still can’t), but the idea had been around at least since the 1910s.