Sony has announced that it has begun work on a 3-D computer-animated film based upon the classic Popeye comic strips and cartoons. The movie, which will be produced by Avi Arad, who had previously worked on the studio’s blockbuster Spider-Man franchise, will be the first Popeye picture to hit theaters since Robert Altman’s live-action flop starring Robin Williams in 1980. Sony is keeping the specifics of the plot under wraps, but promises to include the speech-impeded, spinach-chomping sailor man’s wife Olive Oyl and their adopted child Swee’Pea, as well as his nemesis Bluto. Given the fact that the Popeye franchise has been mostly dormant for the past few decades, the studio may face some difficulty in marketing the characters to a younger generation with no nostalgic memories of the original cartoons. Then again, that didn’t stop Alvin and the Chipmunks, and if Sony’s animators can pull off some eye-popping 3-D with Popeye’s improbable musculature and feats of strength, all of that could be a nonissue. [Variety]
