“Tom and Jerry” Headed to Big-Screen

The eternal game of cat and mouse between popular cartoon characters Tom and Jerry will continue on the big-screen.   The never-ending battle between the duo will come to life using CGI versions of Tom and Jerry interacting with live-action settings. 

Warner Brothers will produce the film and is targeting the film at the family audience that went to made “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and the first “Scooby Doo” solid box-office performers.   Interest in mining popular animated franchises for the family audience rocketed into high gear when “Alvin” made over $400 million at the box-office on a budget of just $60 million.   Those revenues don’t even take into account tie-in merchandise and the eventual DVD (and now Blu Ray) releases for the film.

Warner Brothers isn’t the only studio to bring popular animated series to life by blending live action and CG.  A big-screen version of “Yogi Bear” is also planned. 

Eric Gravning is writing the script.

“Tom and Jerry” originated as a series of 114 animated shorts, produced by MGM’s toon studio between 1940 and 1960, and won seven Academy Awards. New toons were produced after that, and Warner Bros. released “Tom and Jerry: The Movie” in 1992 as a feature-length toon.