Jonny Quest (Robert Rodriguez)

Jonny Quest is back on. Robert Rodriguez has come aboard the adventure project, an adaptation of the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon, which has been dormant for the past several years. Moving the Warner Bros. adventure along is Terry Rossio, whose credits range from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies to The Mask of Zorro.

Rodriguez and Rossio are rewriting the script initially penned by Dan Mazeau, with Rodriguez on board to direct. Dan Lin and Adrian Askarieh are producing.

Quest was a 1964 ABC primetime cartoon that chronicles the neato adventures of Quest, a boy who accompanies his father on globe-spanning missions. Rounding out the team are Hadji, a Kolkatan orphan and Jonny's best friend; his pet bulldog, Bandit; and government agent/bodyguard Race Bannon. (Jonny was voiced by Tim Matheson of Animal House fame, and his father, Benton C. Quest, was voiced by John Stephenson, who passed away last week.)

While the show lasted only a season — it was canceled not due to ratings but because it was expensive to produce — it lived on lucratively for the next few decades in syndication. The late 1980s and the 1990s brought forth cartoon revivals and comic books. And Hollywood interest.

After Ted Turner bought the Hanna-Barbera library in the early 1990s, Richard Donner (Superman, Lethal Weapon) and Lauren Shuler Donner were involved in an adaptation.
    
Lin, one of the producers behind The Lego Movie, and Askarieh, who is producing the upcoming Hitman: Agent 47 movie, began developing a new version in 2007. It was also then that Mazeau was hired to pen the script. A movie was close to a green light in 2010 with Zac Efron as Quest, Dwayne Johnson as Bannon and Peter Segal (50 First Dates) circling to direct.

Quest may have found the right fit this time around with Rodriguez, who, apart from his violent and R-rated fare (Sin City, Machete), has shown a love and proficiency in making kids' adventure movies with his four-installment Spy Kids series.

There’s a lot of excitement surrounding Robert Rodriguez’s adaptation of Jonny Quest, but little confirmed news as to which characters are certain to make the cut, which version of the fan-favorite series will serve as inspiration, and what rating it will ultimately receive. In speaking with producer Adrian Askarieh at the Hitman: Agent 47 junket in NYC, we were able to answer some of those questions.

Rodriguez recently turned in the script he co-wrote with Terry Rossio, both of them working from an earlier draft by Dan Mazeau. Though it’s not quite ready to turn in to the studio yet, they expect to have the script in soon. Then, it’s up to the studio to decide the film’s ultimate rating. For an up-to-date look at where the Jonny Quest movie stands right now, check out Steve’s interview with Askarieh below.

Collider: What’s the status of this project, and where are you in the scripting phase?
 
Adrian Askarieh: Dan Lin and I have been developing Jonny Quest for eight years. Lot of starts and stops. Speed Racer hurt us big time. I don’t subscribe to the notion that … they were completely different movies, but that’s the reality of the studio world. But everywhere I go around the world, when people find out I’m involved with Jonny Quest, it doesn’t matter how old they are, 40, 50, 12, 18, all walks of life, they love the character, they love that show, they want to see the movie. It’s extraordinary. I don’t think any of my projects have that ‘want to see it’, that fan fervor that Jonny Quest does.
 
So Dan and I are now working with Robert Rodriguez, who’s directing and co-writing with Terry Rossio, and they’ve turned in a draft which is phenomenal. We’re doing a little more work on it; we hope to turn it in after Labor Day to the studio. And I really feel the timing might finally be upon us that we’re going to make the Jonny Quest movie. It really is an extraordinary script. A lot of the credit actually goes to Dan Mazeau because we’re re-writing his original draft, but Terry and Robert have brought a zing to it. I think Robert is going to really, really hit it out of the ballpark. He’s very passionate about it.

How does the movie you guys envision compare to the animated show? Does it feel like it’s the same universe? What’s your basis that you’re working with?
 
Askarieh: We’re working based on the original 1960s Jonny Quest prime time animated show. That is our source of, not only inspiration, but the pool that we’re culling our inspirations from. I know a lot of people like The New Adventures of Jonny Quest, and that’s fine, but we are now focusing on the original 60s animated show. Robert, Dan Lin, Terry Rossio, myself, big fans, and look, there’s nothing wrong with it, so if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. That thing is a work of genius. We’re lucky to have it to reference.

Can you confirm the same character names and the same kind of archetypes? Are you mixing it up a little bit?
Askarieh: No, Jonny Quest is in it. Race Bannon, Benton Quest, Hadji is in the movie, even Bandit.

You’re going old school.
Askarieh: Jezebel Jade. If you love Jonny Quest, the potential that this movie has to honor that show, I think you’ll be thrilled by it.

I would imagine that’s a PG-13.
Askarieh: Yes. We want to make a PG-13. Again, I never want to be presumptuous to stamp a rating before the studio gets involved; that’s ultimately their decision. This is not going to be a kiddie action-adventure movie; this will be an action-adventure that happens to have a 12-year-old in it.

Robert said something along the lines of an Indiana Jones, something like that. An action-adventure that happens to have a kid.
Askarieh: Exactly. That’s, all of us, that’s what we want. That’s our M.O. for this movie. Indiana Jones meets James Bond.