On top of producing his twelve TV shows and working on his foul-mouthed teddy bear movie with Mark Wahlberg, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane will soon be “rebooting” The Flintstones as a TV and movie project. The Hanna-Barbera (both dead, by the way) cartoon earned $340 million worldwide as a live-action feature starring John Goodman and Rick Moranis in 1994, and later tanked as a sequel with Stephen Baldwin and Jane Krakowski in 2000. With the rights now secure, MacFarlane will finally be able to tackle a project even more boring-sounding than The Cleveland Show.
I’ve just learned that [MacFarlane has] finally realized one of his life’s ambitions: to reboot The Flintstones as a TV and film property. My scoop today follows years of very complicated negotiations between 20th Century Fox TV, where McFarlane is based, and Warner Bros Television, which owns the rights to the series after absorbing The Flintstones‘ famed producer Hanna-Barbera. Not only did the suits have a ton of deal points to work through, but I hear the “Yabba Dabba Doo” prehistoric family sitcom’s rightholders were somewhat concerned how the classic series would be interpreted given MacFarlane’s brand of raunchy comedies like Family Guy. So here are all the Hollywood players who had to unentangle this mess: MacFarlane’s attorney Jim Jackoway, WME’s Ari Emanuel and Greg Hodes; 20th Century Fox TV’s Gary Newman, Ira Kurghan, and Howard Kurtzman; and Warner Bros Television’s Peter Roth, Brett Paul and even Bruce Rosenblum. There’s no broadcast date as of yet, but the reboot will air on Fox. [Deadline]
Thank God she mentions them by name, or else these modern-day heroes might not get the recognition they so richly deserve. I hear at one point, negotiations were so contentious they almost didn’t have time for catered lunch. The Flintstones, of course, was essentially a ripoff of The Honeymooners, a family sitcom later reinvented by Married with Children and The Simpsons, which in turn was ripped off by Family Guy, who added a talking dog, and spun off into two other shows that were basically the same. I doubt I’ll watch the reboot, but maybe I’ll send a mannequin who looks like me. (*slides down back of brontosaurus, dismissively wanking with both hands*)
I bet Kevin James is already preparing his trough full of brontosaurus burgers.
WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!?