When last we heard of the long-gestating plans to make The Jetsons into a live-action movie, it was as part of a Kanye West fever dream, the apparent culmination of years of Kanye trying to get a Jetsons movie made through the roundabout means of becoming a famous rapper and then calling Warner Bros. a lot. But before Kanye can turn the DONDA foundation’s army of designers, alchemists, bootblacks, and ocelots loose on ensuring that the Jetsons wear really cool shoes, there’s the small matter of actually getting a screenplay—or rather, another one, to go atop a pile that already includes the drafts previously created for departed director Robert Rodriguez.
Promisingly, that job now belongs to young writers Van Robichaux and Evan Susser, who recently proved there’s a way to breathe new life into an enervated sci-fi franchise with their Black List-topping script Chewie, a satirical behind-the-scenes look at the making of Star Wars, as seen through the eyes of Peter Mayhew, that will never get made in a million years. Granted, they’re still working on a live-action Jetsons movie that will probably be soundtracked by a Kanye West concept album in which he will utter something like, “This thing so cray, I need Jane to get me off,” but in this inchoate stage, at least, Warner Bros. is trying something unexpected.
