Everyone's favorite neighborhood ghost is back.
Apparently in Hollywood there is no product, character or franchise that won't be remade, rebooted or reworked these days.
Classic Media is in talks with Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures to develop a new live-action film based on the classic comic "Casper the Friendly Ghost" according to What's Playing.
The last time the character was on the silver screen was for the big-budget feature "Casper" in 1995 which pulled in around $300 million at the global box-office. The film starred Bill Pullman and Christina Ricci as a supernatural psychiatrist and his daughter and was a blend of live action and computer graphics.
Since then however, Harvey Comics' friendly ghost has been relegated to the small screen in the form of direct-to-disc releases and kids television shows. "Casper: A Spirited Beginning" was released in 1997 and was one of the first direct-to-video sequels ever, but the company is looking to move away from that form of release for the character.
In 2009 the comic "Casper and the Spectrals" was published and it revamped Casper’s story and characters, with hopes of bringing in a new audience of kids. The film most likely would follow suit, adding some contemporary elements to the story to help make it more relatable for today's audiences. Discussions of the film being shot for 3D are also taking place (what a surprise).
The company also owns the rights to every other Harvey Comics character, including Little Dot, and is looking at bringing them to cinemas as well.
Maybe it was just because I myself was a kid when it came out, but I enjoyed the first live-action "Casper" film and I think an updated version of the character would do well at the box office. The character has been around for over 50 years, so that means at some point most likely that grandparents, parents, their kids, and their kids all may have been fans of the character or cartoon at some point in their lives.
Movement on this project should happen in the coming months.
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