What has kept a sequel to this beloved 1980s movie from ever becoming a reality?

Released in 1988, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? became a massive enough box office hit to become one of the biggest movies of the 1980s. It was a perfect storm of influences, mining nostalgia for classic cartoons with groundbreaking visual effects techniques to create truly unprecedented entertainment. Given that every scrap of 1980s media has been mined for nostalgia, not to mention how Disney is obsessed with remaking every vaguely recognizable title in its library, one would imagine that Who Framed Roger Rabbit? would be experiencing a pop culture resurgence right now. Instead, it sits largely gathering dust on a shelf at Walt Disney Pictures.

Roger Rabbit wasn’t always meant to vanish after his hit movie, though. For years, there were talks of some kind of extension of that original feature. The notion of following Roger Rabbit and company on more adventures eventually turned into one of the more relentlessly tormented unmade follow-ups in the history of Hollywood. The first rumblings of a Roger Rabbit sequel emerged almost immediately after the first film hit theaters in 1988. With the project becoming a box office sensation and one of the biggest Disney titles ever up to that point, it made sense for movement to begin on a sequel. In one of his first jobs in Tinseltown, J.J. Abrams was asked by Steven Spielberg to provide an outline for a potential Roger Rabbit sequel. This version of the project went nowhere, though it did serve as a sizable indicator that there was serious interest in getting this project done.

From here, a more concrete vision of a Roger Rabbit sequel emerged entitled Roger Rabbit: The Toon Platoon. In a stroke of genius, this production would take inspiration from the barrage of World War II propaganda shorts created by animation houses (including Disney) in the 1940s by featuring Roger Rabbit and other cartoons fighting Nazis during World War II. This prequel had a lot of potential for inventive sight gags, entertaining nods to the past, and, in being a war more rather than a neo-noir, offering something distinctly different from its predecessor. All seemed to be going swimmingly.

However, this sequel found itself tripped up due to complaints from producer Steven Spielberg. In a post-Jaws world, Spielberg has had enormous clout on any movie he attaches himself to, even if it’s only in an executive producer capacity. But he was especially influential on the original Roger Rabbit, with this filmmaker getting extensive ownership and creative control on the project. In exchange, Disney would benefit by having Spielberg use his clout to guarantee the appearances of classic cartoon stars from rival studios in a Walt Disney Pictures release.

The relationship between the Mouse House and Spielberg on anything Roger Rabbit had grown strained by the early 1990s, so it was no surprise that the filmmaker would eventually shoot down the proposed screenplay for The Toon Platoon. Spielberg would later claim that a key reason for why he discouraged this prequel was that he felt uncomfortable using Nazis as goofy villains after making the 1993 feature Schindler’s List. Though this version of the project was a no-go, there was still money to be made from doing another Roger Rabbit short. Thus, Disney commissioned a new screenplay, this time entitled Who Discovered Roger Rabbit?

Much like The Toon Platoon, this proposed production would also be a prequel whose plot was spurred by Roger Rabbit searching for his mother. However, this time, Roger Rabbit wouldn’t end up in the trenches of World War II during his wacky adventures. Instead, he would stumble into a Broadway gig that would launch him into stardom. This film would, unlike its predecessor, be a musical, with a bevy of original tunes penned by Disney’s go-to songwriter in the 1990s, Alan Menken. Though it had been nearly a decade since the original Roger Rabbit at this point, there still seemed to be a lot of potential, both creatively and in terms of box office revenue, in pursuing this prequel.

However, further problems came about when it was decided by Disney brass that this new Roger Rabbit prequel would differentiate itself from its predecessor by having the cartoon characters realized through computer animation rather than hand-drawn means. This was a big shift for Who Discovered Roger Rabbit? not least because it would necessitate finding out if these characters could work as well in three dimensions. But it was also impactful because it drove up the budget of the film even further. Once it became clear just how costly it would be to realize this production, not to mention growing concern over how long it had been since the first film, Who Discovered Roger Rabbit? was killed.

After that, the film floated around as a nebulous possibility for years, but there was never any serious momentum on it. in March 2003, Don Hahn told USA Today that a follow-up to the film was officially off the table, with Hahn partially attributing this to how much the pop culture scene, and especially the role of animation in the broader world of entertainment, had shifted so drastically since Who Framed Roger Rabbit? came out in 1988. He also claimed that none of the proposed ideas for a prequel were ever strong enough to justify pulling the trigger on making another movie set in this universe. With these comments, it was apparent that the time for this follow-up had come and gone.

And yet…nothing stays dead in Hollywood, so of course, the occasional encouraging word about a Roger Rabbit follow-up would creep into the headlines. In November 2009, the most promising development in years occurred for this proposed sequel when Robert Zemeckis revealed that a new screenplay was underway for the feature while the plan was to now have the cartoon characters realized in hand-drawn animation, but have them inhabit a motion-capture animated world rather than a live-action one. Seven months later, cryptic but promising comments from producer Don Hahn indicated that a new Roger Rabbit adventure, at long last, might be moving ahead.

However, nothing emerged in the immediate wake of these comments, though producer Frank Marshall did say in August 2012 that a screenplay was almost finished and that, much like The Toon Platoon or Discovered, this new production would be a prequel. By 2016, though, Zemeckis was considerably less hopeful about the chances of this sequel going forward. He did dish further details on the proposed project, including that it would utilize pop culture aesthetics associated with the 1950s and would apparently feature a digital version of the late Bob Hoskins, who played Eddie Valiant in the original movie.

However, Zemeckis’s comments here do shed clarity on why Disney is in no hurry to exploit the Roger Rabbit brand name, despite offering up remakes and reboots of other 80s fare from the studio like an in-development Flight of the Navigator remake. Per Zemeckis, Disney’s modern culture has no room for the world of Roger Rabbit, which was far from graphic but made no attempts to hide cigarettes, booze, and the existence of sex. Jessica Rabbit was noted as being especially problematic for Disney executives, though there were likely additional factors at play that made a new Roger Rabbit movie seem out of step for current Disney.

Specifically, Zemeckis noted that this Roger Rabbit follow-up, in its current form, would employ hand-drawn animation. This is a medium that Disney has largely abandoned in favor of computer animation and doesn’t appear to be returning to for theatrical movies anytime soon. Additionally, Disney’s fixation on new Star Wars and Marvel Cinematic Universe installments means that the Mouse House has itself plenty satisfied with big-budget VFX-driven blockbusters, a niche that the original Who Framed Roger Rabbit? filled nicely for the studio back in 1988. On top of all that, not all of Disney’s attempts to milk 1980s nostalgia proved to be instant box office winners. Tron: Legacy did only OK at the box office in 2010, most notably. With no guarantee of massive box office and the prospect of dealing with the complicated rights issues associated with Roger Rabbit, the proposed follow-up to this 1988 classic was always doomed to gather dust unmade.

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The history of a Who Framed Roger Rabbit? follow-up has been plagued by nonstop problems, but that barrage of issues does provide a fascinating glimpse into the evolution of Disney over the decades. The initial frenzy to turn this movie into a franchise reflected how, in the late 1980s and the first years of the 1990s, Disney didn’t have a multitude of big blockbusters to milk for all they were worth. By the time the mid-1990s rolled around, the company’s animation house was in a renaissance that produced countless hits, reducing the need for more Roger Rabbit installments. Meanwhile, the desire to realize these characters in CGI in the late 1990s is a reflection of the growing prominence of CGI in this era, an art form Disney’s in-house animation division would fully embrace in the 2000s.

Perhaps most notably, the current lack of widespread attention paid to Roger Rabbit by Disney reflects where the company’s priorities lie in the modern world. It’s not like the character has been entirely erased by history, as seen by Roger Rabbit making a cameo in the 2022 feature Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers. But the Disney of today is enamored with superheroes, Jedi, and fully animated franchises. Roger Rabbit is no longer at the forefront of its mind, even though, ironically, its groundbreaking blend of animation and live-action elements paved the way for the VFX techniques utilized in Disney’s biggest 21st-century blockbusters. With this shift in priorities, a prospective sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? has never materialized, making it the rare 1980s classic to not get heavily exploited in modern pop culture.

Douglas Laman is a life-long movie fan, writer and Rotten Tomatoes approved critic whose writing has been published in outlets like The Mary Sue, Fangoria, The Spool, and ScarleTeen. Residing both on the Autism spectrum and in Texas, Doug adores pugs, showtunes, the Wes Anderson movie Fantastic Mr. Fox, and any music by Carly Rae Jepsen.

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