Will there ever be a sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Director Robert Zemeckis doesn’t think so.
Zemeckis, 72, opened up about the possibility of a sequel to the beloved Disney film on the Oct. 30 episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast. The original film, released in 1988, became a major box office success, bringing in more than $350 million. The flick was a comedic noir that imagined a Hollywood where cartoons and humans live together, and the plot involved murder, adultery, blackmail and other adult topics.
But none of that is the reason why the Here director thinks Roger Rabbit 2 will never happen.
“There’s a good script sitting at Disney,” Zemeckis said, noting that original screenwriters Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman had penned a great follow-up. “The current Disney would never make Roger Rabbit today. They can’t make a movie with Jessica [Rabbit] in it,” he said.
Jessica Rabbit was the extremely sexy animated wife of Roger Rabbit. She was voiced by Kathleen Turner, with Amy Irving as her singing voice, though both were uncredited at the time. Jessica is a sultry cartoon singer who remains to this day one of the most iconic cartoon sex symbols — and a very popular Halloween costume.
Zemeckis claimed Disney would never go there again, however. “Look what they did to Jessica at the theme park,” he added. “They trussed her up in a trench coat.” The Forrest Gump director was referring to a change Disney made in 2021 to the Disneyland version of the ride Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin. The ride got a new storyline that starred Jessica as a private investigator — wearing a trench coat over her iconic outfit.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit also starred Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Stubby Kaye and Charles Fleischer as the voice of Roger. It was produced by both Disney and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment.
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Zemeckis, who also directed movies like Death Becomes Her, Back to the Future and The Polar Express, reflected on the podcast that he tried to have the attitude of Walt Disney while making Who Framed Roger Rabbit. “Walt Disney never made any of his movies for children. He always made them for adults,” he explained.
Still, he was “terrified” the first time they played the movie for children, but his fears were assuaged when the children were “riveted” by the film. “I think the thing that Walt Disney never did was he never talked down to the children in his movies. He treated the kids like they were adults,” he said.
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