‘The Jetsons’: Jim Carrey’s Live-Action Movie Is Officially Happening!!

Rubber-faced funnyman Jim Carrey has often been described as a live-action cartoon. He’s certainly never shied away from bringing characters best known as cartoons into live-action, from the green-furred Grinch of How the Grinch Stole Christmas to mustachioed mad scientist Dr. Robotnik in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Now, he’s poised to embody another animated icon in a new big-screen project.

The new film is coming from Warner Bros; despite being on the verge of a merger with Paramount (or maybe not, as per the latest delays in the ongoing saga of David Ellison‘s quest for supremacy), the studio has a wide array of projects in the hopper for the near future, as per their quarterly letter to shareholders. That includes a new Matrix movie, the much-delayed The Batman: Part II, and Aegon’s Conquest, a new film from the oeuvre of Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin.

According to Warner Bros‘ quarterly letter to shareholders, a live-action big-screen adaptation of The Jetsons is moving forward. News first broke of the percolating live-action reboot last year, when Carrey was reported to be circling the role of family patriarch George Jetson. Jurassic World‘s Colin Trevorrow was reportedly tapped to direct and co-write the screenplay with Joe Epstein. Warner is the owner of famed animation studio Hanna-Barbera’s extensive library of cartoons, which were originally acquired by Ted Turner in 1991.

What Is ‘The Jetsons’?

Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera for their namesake animation studio, Hanna-Barbera Productions, in 1962, The Jetsons is a sitcom-style animated series about a family in a far-flung future of flying cars, food pills, and robots. George Jetson, an employee of Spacely Sprockets, presides over a family that includes wife Jane, teenage daughter Judy, adolescent son Elroy, faithful dog Astro, and sassy robot maid Rosie. It was the first series broadcast in color on ABC, and was a rare example of a pre-Simpsons prime-time animated series, alongside fellow Hanna-Barbera series The Flintstones. However, it did not share The Flintstones‘ success, and was cancelled after a single season. Hanna-Barbera produced new episodes of The Jetsons for syndication in the 1980s, which added alien pet Orbitty to the cast, and it got a theatrical film (which featured pop star Tiffany as the voice of Judy Jetson) in 1990.