As reported here, he will direct and co-write.
This will either be incredibly good, or incredibly horrible.
If he screws this up, he’ll have to answer to ME!
The first Spy Kids movie was pretty good, so I suspect he has it in him. He’s had some clunkers though.
Can we get Dwayne Johnson to put on a blonde wig? 
They’d better have that invisible monster make a comeback.
Tho the actual original episode was an excellent example of how you don’t show the monster until it becomes absolutely necessary.
Given that this is Hollywood, the odds are 70-30 they mess it up.
Hopefully they lock the script-writers and director in a room and show them the entire original series (the follow-ons ranged from so-so to ugh!, IMHO) four or five times over so that they understand why this series is still remembered and appreciated 50 years later.
Like John DiFool said, much of the fun was the monster angle, and the combination of derring-do and super-science that combatted it.
But I don’t know about the Invisible Energy Monster returning…that scared the shit out of me as a kid (and I still find it creepy).
Are there any JQ episodes except the one with the sort of weird walking-spider-soccer ball robot? That seems to be the one I caught every time.
Actually… aren’t there only about 13 eps in all? Of the original, anyway? But I guess the good stuff (like “Land of the Lost”) was already taken, so Boberto has to settle for this.
(Don’t hates on me. Mrs. B. recalls it quite fondly, too.)
So will they make Race Bannon and Jonny’s father a married couple? And will they tone down the racist portrayal of Hadji?
There were 26 episodes in the original series. By my count, clips from nine of these are shown in the opening credits of each episode, including two from “The Robot Spy”, which may in part explain why that one seems so familiar.
I’m not optimistic about the remake. The screenplay they’re apparently starting from is by a writer responsible for several recent big-budget clunkers, and unlike many here, I’ve never cared much for Robert Rodriguez’ directorial efforts. Frankly, if I were calling the shots, I’d have it redone as an animated series, played relatively straight, by the production team responsible for Archer (although to make it work, they’d pretty much have to tone down the raunchiness far more than they seem to like).
What we need is a competing studio doing a live-action Venture Bros movie.
Is this going to be based on Jonny Quest, New Jonny Quest, or Real Jonny Quest?
As a young’un I only watched The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. I thought it was fun, although I mainly remember the CGI virtual world and the shot in the credits where Jessie flicks her hair (as I’m sure every young boy did back then).
Jessie? Who’s the skirt?
Race Bannon’s daughter.
By Jade? :eek:
(Kidding)
In the two animated TV-movies made in the nineties, she WAS Race’s daughter by a re-imagined Jade. (Said movies seemed to be more of a reboot–hinting that Mrs. Quest, who died during the first one, had been alive all along during the series (when the first episode of classic JQ said outright that Jonny’s mother was dead and that this was the reason that Race had been hired. The implication was that she’d gotten killed by some enemy who’d been after Benton, and that the family needed a bodyguard for that reason.)
The showrunner of The Real Adventures (which were very good indeed) discounted the eighties episodes and the two TV-movies, but kept Jessie in. In this version, she was Race’s daughter by his ex-wife, a redheaded Argentinian archaeologist.
I hope that this’ll be good. I would love for them to give it a sort of retro, Zeerust look to tie in with the series. (Sort of the way Batman: TAS had modern technology but an Art Deco look.)
Pfah! I want the Spider Robot!
I hope he doesn’t take the bait. As I recall, the “gay couple” idea began as a joke on the Cartoon Network. I rather strongly suspect that the fan base for Johnny Quest isn’t looking for a diversion into the gay marriage debate.
I don’t recall Hadji’s portrayal being notably racist. He didn’t have mystic powers or any of the other cliches that tended to pop up at the time. Or am I forgetting something?
I hope they have a cute little bulldog.
Wait - was Bandit a bulldog, a pug, or a French bulldog?
There was one episode where Hadji levitated, and as I remember it wasn’t presented as a trick. But it’s been a while since I’ve seen that one, so I’m not sure. If anyone remembers which episode that is, I’d like to rewatch.
I hope they don’t go “modern”, with Race and Benton as a gay couple, and Jonny tweeting and Dr Quest being investigated by CPS and people are posting youtube videos of their adventures and etc. And don’t make it “dark”. Please!
And be sure either the energy monster or the spider robot are in there!
Regarding mystic powers: snake charming, rope tricks, levitation of objects (including Bandit!) and whatever you call the ability to pop up from different ceramic vases without some means of moving between them, all usually prefaced with the phrase “Sim sim salabim”.
Anyway, I’d say Hadji was nowhere near the most egregiously racist characterization in the show. There were numerous others that I’m pretty sure would never pass muster today, mostly in the “jabbering jungle-dwellers in colorful native costumes” vein.
Incidently, there’s an excellent fan-made documentary on the original JQ series on Youtube that include a hilarious selection of clips of the voice actors speaking in various entirely obviously (and badly) made-up dialects.