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While nowadays it can be counted among the children’s movies that in retrospect weren’t so appropriate for children, there’s no question that Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a classic. From being packed with lines that still hit fresh to boasting many interesting behind-the-scenes facts, the movie about private investigator Eddie Valiant working to prove the innocence of popular toon Roger Rabbit has retained critical acclaimed status ever since it was released in 1988. Unfortunately, a sequel never followed, and as much as I hate to admit it, the reasons director Robert Zemeckis shared for why Who Framed Roger Rabbit 2 can never happen make sense.
Disney’s Current Leadership Allegedly Isn’t Interested In Roger Rabbit
Zemeckis stopped by Happy Sad Confused to talk with host Josh Horowitz about his 2024 movie release Here, and during the latter portion of their conversation, Who Framed Roger Rabbit came up. Horowitz brought up how he’d learned from Zemeckis years earlier that Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman, who wrote the 1988 movie, had also penned a sequel that the filmmaker was “really excited about,” prompting Zemeckis to say:
Yeah, there’s a good script sitting at Disney, but here’s what you have to know, and you know this: the current Disney would never make Roger Rabbit today. So they can’t make a movie with Jessica in it. So the Seaman and Price sequel script isn’t ever going to see the light of day, as good as it is. Because look what they did to Jessica at the theme park, they trussed her in a trench coat.
I have no doubt that another major hurdle towards making Who Framed Roger Rabbit 2 is how it would be a lot harder for Disney to comes to arrangements with other companies to utilize their cartoon characters, like Warner Bros. with the Looney Tunes, compared to in the late 1980s. But with the way Robert Zemeckis is talking, it sounds like that’s a moot point. The powers-that-be at the Mouse House apparently just aren’t interested in revisiting this property, which Zemeckis says is due to the scantily-clad Jessica Rabbit. In that last sentence, Zemeckis is referring to how Jessica has been seen wearing a trench coat and fedora in the artwork for the Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin rides at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland since 2021.
The Who Framed Roger Rabbit Sequel Needed To Include Bob Hoskins
Given Disney’s frequent avoidance with sexually suggestive material with its more kid-friendly movies, I can’t say I’m surprised by this explanation Robert Zemeckis gave, though I don’t like it. But even ignoring that corporate preference, without Bob Hoskins, who played Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and died in 2014, there’s no way for the Who Framed Roger Rabbit 2 script to be properly realized on the big screen. As the director laid out:
When the sequel was written… a lot of the story was that Eddie was no longer with us, but he would show up as a ghost in certain times. But I guess we wouldn’t be able to do it now.
It’d have been one thing to have Bob Hoskins play Eddie Valiant as a ghost while he was still around, but even on the off chance Disney was willing to look the other way on Jessica Rabbit, work out deals with those other companies and move forward with Who Framed Roger Rabbit 2, it wouldn’t feel right have Eddie simply be recast. If a different version of the sequel were put together that starred all-new human characters, then it’d be another thing. Still, what we can take away is that there are just too many obstacles to getting another one of these movies off the ground.
So you’ll just have to make do with streaming Who Framed Roger Rabbit with your Disney+ subscription and enjoy Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin if you find yourself at Disneyland. Otherwise, you can look over the lineup of upcoming Disney movies to see what catches your eye.