Conrad Vernon has been tapped by Warner Bros. to helm the studio’s upcoming big-screen adaptation of The Jetsons. The director’s most recent release was the raunchy animated comedy Sausage Party, which he co-directed alongside Greg Tiernan.
Vernon has served as director on a string of hit animated movies, including Shrek 2, Monsters vs. Aliens, and Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted. He also voiced the Gingerbread Man in the Shrek films, as well a host of bit parts in other DreamWorks movies.
The Jetsons debuted in September 1962, and became deeply embedded in popular culture thanks to its constant presence in Saturday morning television schedules over the following two decades. Warner Bros. film adaptation will apparently be animated, according to a report from Variety. However, this hasn’t always been the case with previous attempts to produce a movie based on the family’s exploits.
Plans for a theatrical release based on The Jetsons have been in motion for quite some time, but various iterations of the project have failed to get off the ground. In the early 2000s, a live-action version was being pursued, but even despite a number of script rewrites, the production could never gain any real traction.
By 2007, the idea of a live-action adaptation had been scrapped, and Robert Rodriguez was being courted to direct a computer-animated film based on the property. Of course, this version of movie would also fail to materialize.
In 2012, there were reports that The Jetsons was once again being developed as a live-action adaptation, and that Kanye West was in the running to serve as creative director on the movie. However, this was later clarified as having been an idea that was floated in a phone call between West and producer Denise Di Novi, rather than anything close to a done deal.
Vernon will direct a script written by Matt Lieberman, who boarded the project in 2015. No release date has been made public at this time.