A Sequel To ‘Roger Rabbit’ Was Discussed Between Steven Spielberg And J.J. Abrams

J.J. Abrams is now in the record books of Disney stardom thanks to the monstrous work done on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Well, he was almost in their good graces long before that and it would have come due to a film that has become a cult classic. It appears Abrams once spoke to the legendary Steven Spielberg about doing a sequel to the cult classic, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

P-p-p-p-p-please!

The film was released in 1988 and it was so incredibly ahead of its time that is is absolutely ridiculous. For years, there has been talk that a sequel would happen to Robert Zemeckis’ film that partnered the real world with that of Toon Town.

On a recent edition of the Nerdist podcast, Abrams was with director Dan Trachtenberg to help promote 10 Cloverfield Lane. Of course, that brought on talk of Star Wars and such, but then an amazing story made its way into existence.

Abrams considers Lucasfilms’ Kathleen Kennedy a mentor of his and he remembered the first time he got a call from her. She was asking him to restore some 8mm film for Steven Spielberg.

“I’ve told this story before, but when I was 16 Kathleen Kennedy called Matt Reeves (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) and I, to ask if we would repair these 8mm films Steven had made when he was a kid. It happened because we were in a film festival and she had read about us in the LA Times. So, of course, we said yes and did the repairs.”

Abrams had actually really hoped to meet Steven Spielberg because he wanted to pitch an idea to him. An idea that had been in his head for some time.

That pitch was for Roger Rabbit 2. A year after the original film came out, J.J. Abrams was able to meet the man himself.

“Years later I got to meet Steven. I went into a meeting…actually, it was for a Roger Rabbit sequel. It was a whole thing. I actually have some storyboards for a Roger Rabbit short. Honestly, we never really got to that phase [where it got serious]. We were writing an outline, but it honestly went away before it was anything. This was a long time ago. Zemeckis probably would’ve been a producer on it. This was 1989.”

Considering it has been almost a full three decades since that meeting and the pitch, Abrams doesn’t quite remember the details of the outline for Who Framed Roger Rabbit? sequel. Yet almost 30 years later, Kathleen did call him to do much more than fix up some 8mm film.

She called him to do Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Maybe one day, someone will call someone to have that sequel to Roger Rabbit made.

Cinema Blend reported that J.J. Abrams actually still has a number of storyboards laying around from the Roger Rabbit sequel that was never made. Details may be sketchy and were never really completed, but the mere thought of that amazing storyline continuing would be incredible.

Doing a sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? wouldn’t be impossible, but there would be a few key people missing.

Bob Hoskins, who played Eddie Valiant, sadly passed away in 2014. Christopher Lloyd played the role of and voiced Judge Doom, and he could return, but his character died in the first film. Kathleen Turner could still do the voice of Jessica Rabbit and Charles Fleischer could return as the voice of Roger, Benny the Cab, and many others.

A sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? may never become a reality, but it surely would be fantastic if it did. It would have been even better if one had happened so soon after the first film when a young J.J. Abrams met with Steven Spielberg about it.

[Image via Disney]