For those of you ever wondering when we will get go to a Toy Story with appliances this should go a long way. Remember that film The Brave Little Toaster? Well, The Wrap is reporting that Waterman Entertainment just grabbed the rights to this 2D-animated classic with the intentions of creating it into a CGI/live-action hybrid. Seeing how these type of films generally make a few hundred million dollars each and tend to cost way less than pure animation, this seems like a win for those involved.
The concern of course is whether or not the movie will lose its core appeal, and that certainly is not helped by producer Steve Waterman’s involvement. We have to remember that the foundations of The Brave Little Toaster back in 1987 included Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, and Cars scribe Joe Ranft as well as backer John Lassiter who actually pitched the project to Disney to become the first CGI film ever. Needless to say, that never happened.
It definitely has some Pixar blood in it which makes the franchise a classic; however, it remains to be seen who else will be working on this one. Just to point out, Waterman’s films include Alvin and the Chipmunks and Stuart Little.
Let’s not ignore the real story behind all this though in that this could spark a trend. If proven successful, we could see a mountain of 2D updates no longer just from the world of television. While it may sound like heresy at the moment, even Disney might begin to weigh mining their classic roster to bring it into the 21st century.
Pixar should have acquired the rights to “The Brave Little Toaster” and made it into a fully-CGI movie instead of the talentless hacks at Waterman making one of those crappy hybrid films.