Manimal movie transforms into Will Ferrell/Adam McKay comedy

By Sean O'Neal | July 22, 2014 | 9:01pm

Aux Features Film

First put into production in 2012 amid fears of rapidly dwindling kitsch reserves, the big-screen update of Manimal has now been placed under the stewardship of Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, who have a proven ability to blend the cheap crude of nostalgia with postmodern additives to create a longer-burning fuel. Of course, that’s not a high bar to clear for Manimal, a show that was given a mere eight episodes in 1983 to explore the premise of a wealthy, crime-fighting doctor who’s able to transform into animals—a short time that could explain why he mostly just turned into a hawk and a panther (besides the fact that all other animals comparatively blow).

But Ferrell, McKay, Sony Pictures Animation, and the film’s writers, Jay Martel and Ian Roberts of Key & Peele, are confident they can extend that into a feature-length Manimal, probably necessitating the addition of at least one, suckier animal. And obviously, Ferrell and McKay once again have high hopes that Manimal can similarly be transformed from the accidentally campy drama that inspires them into the self-aware campy comedy that sustains them, like some kind of campdramntionaledy.