'Rugrats' Live-Action Hybrid Movie Ungrounded At Paramount After Five Years
It seems even the trades have the memory of a goldfish because no one has mentioned how it came up before
This Halloween season, there’s a resurrected project at Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures, and it’s bringing back the adventurous Rugrats babies. Again. The live-action CGI hybrid film adaptation of the beloved Nicktoon is once again in the works at the studio. This time, it has Jason Moore on board to direct, and Saturday Night Live’s Mikey Day and writing partner Streeter Seidell are writing the film.
As alluded to, this isn’t the first attempt at such a film. One was originally announced back in 2018 alongside what ultimately became the CG-animated reboot series that premiered on Paramount+ in 2021…and bewilderingly scrubbed this past March during a notorious purge for an impairment charge with a third season still in the works. The original version of the film was being written by David Goodman and already had a release date given of November 13, 2020. By the time the film was shelved on November 12, 2019, it had already moved to January 29, 2021. Once again, this attempt seems like they’re going for a CGI main cast of babies while everyone else is live actors and everything in real environments. This time, there’s no timeframe for start of production or release, and they’re not there yet for casting either. In its place was Rumble, which had moved from July 31, 2020 and would ultimately skip a theatrical release entirely and release on Paramount+ instead all the way in December 2021. This was also the point where The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run officially received its title.
Rugrats, created by Arlene Klasky, Gábor Csupó and Paul Germain, was Nickelodeon’s first big hit Nicktoon, originally running the standard 65 half hours from 1991 to 1994. Its original major creatives split up between Recess and Hey Arnold!, but the rerun ratings were found to be strong enough to warrant more episodes that began airing in 1996 and ran until 2004, totaling 9 seasons and 172 half hours. The franchise also had three theatrical animated movies, two spinoffs of starkly differing success, two direct-to-video movies, and the aforementioned reboot which currently has 46 episodes released.
Moore is a director and producer across film, television and Tony-nominated theater. His feature directorial debut was Pitch Perfect starring Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson and Brittany Snow. He would serve as executive producer on both of the sequels. Moore’s other directing efforts include Sisters, starring Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, Prime Video’s Shotgun Wedding, starring Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel, and the upcoming Guncle, based on the bestseller by Steven Rowley, and This Time Tomorrow, based on the Emma Straub novel. Day and Seidell have written numerous Saturday Night Live sketches together, as well as Home Sweet Home Alone.
