New 'Flintstones' Movie in the Works at Warner Bros. (Exclusive)
3:00 PM PDT 5/7/2014 by Borys Kit
Will Ferrell and Adam McKay are executive producing through their Gary Sanchez Productions banner.
It’s Yabba Dabba Doo time again.
Warner Bros. is hoping to bring The Flintstones back to the big-screen, this time as a full-length animated feature.
Chris Henchy -- who is partners with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay in Gary Sanchez Productions and who also co-wrote the script for Warners' Ferrell-Zack Galifianakis comedy The Campaign -- is penning the script.
Ferrell and McKay will executive produce Flintstones, which is in development stages.
Flintstones was The Simpsons of its day, a primetime cartoon and sitcom that ran from 1960 to 1966 and then entertained millions in the ensuing decades when it aired on syndication.
The show was set in the Stone Age and told of the antics of Fred Flintstone, his wife Wilma, his best friend Barney Rubble and Rubble’s wife and Wilma’s best friend, Betty. From the town of Bedrock, Fred worked in a quarry, liked to barbecue brontosaurus burgers and live the modern stone age family life.
The show had several short-lived reboots over the decades (Seth McFarlane recently tried to mount one but tabled it after the pilot script didn’t wow) and has a solid hold in pop culture.
Universal made the live-action 1994 movie (Steven Spielberg was one of the producers) that starred John Goodman, Elizabeth Perkins, Rick Moranis, and Rosie O’Donnell. Elizabeth Taylor played Flintstone’s mother-in-law. The movie was famous for having had 32 writers work on the script.
Warners picked up the rights to Flintstones as part of Time Warners’ 1996 acquisition of Turner Broadcasting, which had bought Flintstones producers and animation powerhouse Hanna-Barbera in 1991.
Andrew Fischel and Cate Adams are spearheading the project.
