Jul 25, 2016

Comic-Con 2016: Warner Bros. Develops Animated Pepe Le Peu feature

Warner Bros. is developing an animated feature film based on the classic Chuck Jones character Pepe Le Pew. The news was revealed on Saturday during an unrelated Comic-Con panel by the film's writer Max Landis, who also pitched the project to Warners.

In a subsequent video statement released on Sunday, Landis acknowledged that the French skunk's nonconsensual attempts at romance might be considered controversial nowadays, but said that he “came up with a story to kind of redeem him.”

The movie will contain elements of Amélie and The French Connection, Landis elaborated. He also read a little bit of the script, which he prefaced by saying it was “the dumbest dialogue maybe I've ever written.”

Landis, the 30-year-old son of director John Landis, scored a hit with the first mainstream feature he wrote, Chronicle, which was followed by a string of unsuccessful films, including American Ultra, Mr. Right, and Victor Frankenstein. Landis is currently the lead writer on the BBC America series Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and is also one of six credited writers on next year's Power Rangers film.

Landis is still in the process of finishing a script for the Pepe Le Pew movie. There's no guarantee that the film will ever be produced, and considering how long Warners has been developing a Speedy Gonzales film, don't expect to see a Pepe film anytime soon.