In a recent interview with ImNotBad, if you can believe it, a website dedicated exclusively to Jessica Rabbit news, author Gary K. Wolf revealed that he has reacquired the rights to Roger Rabbit from Disney.
I now have back the rights to all my characters, all my books. I can, basically, do my own Roger Rabbit projects.
With Wolf’s characters back in his possession, he is planning to reintroduce audiences to Roger Rabbit via several different projects. The most prominent is a live-action Jessica Rabbit movie based on the book “Jessica Rabbit: XERIOUS Business.”
The one that is most prominent … is a live-action Jessica Rabbit movie based on the book Jessica Rabbit: XERIOUS Business. That was the first project that we took a look at and the first we started developing. It’s probably the one that’s furthest along right now.
There is also a script for a “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” sequel collecting dust somewhere at Disney headquarters. However, Disney was reportedly never going to greenlight it. Appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Roger Rabbit director Robert Zemeckis confirmed that a screenplay did exist, but Disney was too wary of the way it depicted the famously busty Jessica Rabbit.
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…They can’t make a movie with Jessica in it. So the [Peter] Seaman and [Jeffrey] 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.
Back in 2016, Zemeckis noted that "current corporate Disney culture has no interest in Roger, and they certainly don't like Jessica at all".
Jessica Rabbit’s sensual depiction is well-known—she is “renowned as one of the best-known sex symbols in animation”—and this has contributed to Disney’s hesitancy. With Wolf regaining the rights, there’s no reason to believe he won’t take advantage of the creative freedom he now has to bring her back on the big screen.
Originally, Steven Spielberg was attached to direct a sequel, titled “Who Discovered Roger Rabbit,” which would have explored Roger’s earlier years. A young J.J. Abrams had penned the screenplay. Despite countless delays and rewrites, according to Zemeckis, a final draft of the script still exists somewhere in the Disney vault.
At a post-trailer Q&A for “Werwulf,” which opens Christmas Day, Eggers explained why his next movie is Shakespeare’s teen tragedy rather than another gloomy medieval tale.