There’s a lot that has contributed to the legacy of Disney’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit: the seamless combination of animation and live-action, the gleeful performances from Christopher Lloyd and Bob Hoskins, and… Jessica Rabbit. Although the franchise might not be as well-known today as it was in 1988, Jessica’s Old Hollywood-inspired aesthetic and her onscreen presence made her into a bonafide sex symbol, still immortalized in Halloween costumes and social media posts to this day.
But apparently, she could be headed back to the big screen… in a solo movie. Yes, just days after the announcement that a Miss Piggy solo movie is in the works from Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone, and Cole Escola, franchise creator Gary K. Wolf has expressed plans to make a live-action Jessica Rabbit movie. As Wolf revealed to ImNotBad.com, the copyright for his Roger Rabbit characters, who first debuted in his 1981 crime novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, has now reverted from Disney back to him. When outlining his plans with this new creative freedom, he specifically named a live-action Jessica movie, inspired by his 2022 novel Jessica Rabbit: XERIOUS Business.
“The one that is most prominent … is a live-action Jessica Rabbit movie based on the book Jessica Rabbit: XERIOUS Business. That was the first project that we took a look at and the first we started developing. It’s probably the one that’s furthest along right now.”
Jessica’s origin story?!
XERIOUS Business, if you are unfamiliar, outlines Jessica’s origin story with a bit of a twist. Instead of being a cartoon, she starts the novel as Jessica Krupnick, a boring and plainly-dressed human living with her family in a trailer park. Through her tenure a secret agent of the XERIOUS Organization, who are tasked with stopping criminal masterminds, Jessica transforms into the empowered and confident woman who everyone knows today.
On paper, that subversion of Jessica Rabbit’s whole gimmick might sound like something from a parody movie trailer on SNL… but I will admit, I would be very curious to see how it translates into live-action. Not only to see which actress would be willing to take on such an iconic role, but to see how the line between Jessica’s sexuality and empowerment is toed onscreen. Robert Zemeckis, who directed Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, argued in an interview last year that “the current Disney” would try to desexualize Jessica if they tried to make a sequel or spinoff today. To an extent, I can see where he’s coming from, and I would love to see a XERIOUS Business movie try to prove that wrong.
If this project, or any sort of full-fledged sequel or reboot of Roger Rabbit, come to fruition, Wolf did state that they “have to at least match the quality of the original [1988] movie. In production value, in tone, in script content, in empathy, in character development. It has to be as good, or better than, what we did before. That’s what the fans want, and I have promised the fans that’s what I’m going to give them.”
(featured image: Walt Disney Studios)
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
