After making borderline-animated films for the past few years, Robert Rodriguez is taking on a live-action adaptation of an actual cartoon. THR is reporting that the Sin City director is set to adapt Hanna-Barbera’s Jonny Quest for Warner Bros. with Adrian Askarieh (Hitman: Agent 47) and Dan Lin (The LEGO Movie) producing. Rodriguez will write the script alongside Terry Rossio, who penned the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films and The Lone Ranger with writing partner Ted Elliott, but who's been going out on his own as of late. Rodriguez and Elliott will be working from a previous draft written by Dan Mazeu.
For those who are unfamiliar with the Johnny Quest series, Wikipedia says the cartoon was in the vein of “Doc Savage, Tom Swift, and John Carter of Mars.” The eponymous character was a young boy who went on adventures with his father Dr. Benton Quest, special agent Roger T. “Race” Bannon, friend and adopted brother Hadji, mercenary/spy Jade, and Jonny’s pet dog Bandit.
A Jonny Quest movie was in the works some years back with Zac Efron as Quest, Dwayne Johnson as Bannon, and Peter Segal (50 First Dates) circling to direct, but after Speed Racer, another film based on a 1970s animated series, flopped, the project went into stasis.
Rodriguez has moved between hard R genre fare like Sin City and From Dusk Till Dawn and kids films like the Spy Kids series throughout his career, so a Jonny Quest movie isn't entirely out of character. The filmmaker's last directorial effort was the long-awaited sequel Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, which was essentially D.O.A. when it opened last fall.
