Sony Pictures Animation is still working on a Popeye movie and the project now has a new writer.
As Deadline reported earlier today, T.J. Fixman has been brought in. He just wrote Fox’s Men Who Kill, which will star Michael B. Jordan, and Paramount’s One Night On The Hudson with Jason Sudeikis. He has other film scripts in the works, but he is perhaps best known for his work on the video game series Ratchet and Clank.
The Popeye project had long been a passion for Samurai Jack and Hotel Transylvania creator Genndy Tartakovsky, but he left the film in 2012. He left the project after an animation test was released. It’s not clear how much of Tartakovsky’s vision will stay alive or if Sony is completely scrapping all the hard work he did.
Popeye was created by Elzie Segar and made his debut in 1929. However, his mark on American pop culture wasn’t solidified until the Fleischer Brothers animated shorts began in 1933. In 1980, Paramount and Disney co-produced a live-action film with Robin Williams.