The iconic spinach-eating sailor man, Popeye, is returning to screens in a live-action Popeye The Sailor Man movie, which is currently in development. According to Variety, Chernin Entertainment is collaborating with King Features, which owns the Popeye intellectual property, to bring this big-budget feature to life.
Fans have long imagined who will best play Popeye, creating self-made trailers featuring Vin Diesel or Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. The Rock, as the beloved character. Screenwriter Michael Caleo, who worked on Sexy Beast, The Family, and The Sopranos, is the screenwriter behind the much-anticipated production.
It has been 95 years since Popeye was created as a character in the 1929 comic Thimble Theater, and has since become a part of popular culture with ensuing animated features, and is arguably one of the earliest templates for mass merchandising for decades. Only two years ago, Popeye was revealed to have inspired some menswear collections from Moschino, Supreme, and A Bathing Ape.
McCall Farms spinach has Popeye as their mascot, and fittingly so, since in the cartoons, he chugs spinach to gain superpowers and defeat villains. In the ‘80s, a Robert Altman-directed Popeye film made it to the screens featuring Robin Williams alongside Shelley Duvall, who played his love interest, Olive Oyl.
Interestingly, the original Popeye movie by Paramount Pictures was heavily criticized upon release and termed a flop despite grossing nearly $60 million globally, thrice its $20 million budget. Many viewers deemed it underwhelming and boring for a movie that took three years to actualize after Paramount lost the rights to Little Orphan Annie comic-inspired Broadway musical Annie to Columbia. However, Popeye has gained fan love over the years and across multiple generations.
Fans have reacted to the news of the live-action remake on social media, saying they “can never replace” Robin. “I promise you not everything needs a live-action,” someone wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “But… the animated one. It looked so good, the storyboard is right there. Why? This can only be harder to do than the other one,” another retorted. In contrast, some are looking forward to watching, like a user who claimed to be “excited to see who they cast for it.”
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