She likes to drink. She likes to smoke. And she is super sexually aware. The classic newspaper comic strip Broom-Hilda is on its way to the big screen thanks to a Tales From The Crypt producer.
Created by cartoonist Russell Myers in 1970, the strip is distributed by Chicago's Tribune Media Services. Broom-Hilda acted basically the opposite of every other female cartoon character of her time. Here's how her official website describes her:
Living in an enchanted forest with surrealistic landscapes, the engaging characters of Broom Hilda happily have no connection with reality. Other comic characters are extensions or distortions of reality, but Broom Hilda deals in pure fantasy, making the strip bewitchingly unique. Here in the forest, the inhabitants maintain a standard of madness where total irrelevance is the only relevancy. The strip is simply a loony-bin where what”s said and done often makes no sense whatsoever, much to the joy of its millions of fans.
Broom-Hilda has already been adapted for two different animated television series, but Deadline reports producers Gilbert Adler and Jason A. Rosenberg have secured the rights to make a plethora of adaptations and bring the character into the modern zeitgeist.
“Russell Myers has been entertaining audiences for years. We”re excited to bring this to the big screen. We plan to create a franchise and leverage the IP across film, television and digital media,” said Rosenberg, who previously worked at Empire Entertainment producing commercials before meeting Adler.
“Our intention is to make it into a movie that might have a number 2 and number 3 behind it as well,” said Adler, who was the force behind HBO”s Tales From The Crypt which was also based on a comic strip and spawned two movies for Universal.
The producers didn't specify whether they'd make an animated film or live-action but the way they're talking I wouldn't be surprised if we got both. Back in 2004, there was talk of a bizarrely described musical from Martin Charnin and Kurt Andersen. They had Catherine Zeta-Jones in mind to play Broom-Hilda. It never came to fruition.
“When you look at the comic strip, it looks like maybe it”s for a young audience, but we look at it differently. This is about a witch who has varying powers, but has a problem with weight. And if you look around, doesn”t everyone? And we thought, well that”s it,” Adler told Deadline. “One of my favorite movies was Liar, Liar. It was funny but it was also heartwarming with the story about the relationship between a father and his son. With this project, everyone is concerned about their weight whether they are over or under and that can be very funny yet poignant.”