Cartoons Based On Movies We'd Love To See
If you ever ask your friend what's the best part of their childhood and they don't answer with "cartoons," then we've got bad news for you — they're lying and not your friend. Because cartoons have to be in the top ten for anybody's childhood. Saturday mornings, weekday afternoons, doesn't matter, cartoons hold a special place in our hearts because they embody a moment when whether or not our favorite character would stop the villain and save the day in 22 minutes (give or take commercial breaks) was the only thing that mattered. That, and making sure we finished our Fruit Loops before they got soggy.
Everybody has their top toons, but for many of us, the best were cartoons based on movies — Real Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice, even Batman: The Animated Series. All were classic shows inspired by feature films. Sure, it was just a cash grab to sell more toys to unsuspecting kids, but cartoons based on movies were the best because we got to enjoy more adventures with our favorite big-screen characters from the comfort of the couch. Which got us thinking ... what other movies would make awesome cartoons? Netflix's Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous has the right idea because there are so many opportunities! What are they? Grab a bowl of your favorite cereal because here are cartoons based on movies we'd love to see!
Another Star Wars cartoon? Yes, please!
We know what you're thinking. Another Star Wars cartoon ... really? Actually, it's probably more like, another Star Wars cartoon ... sweet! Because let's be honest, while the movies have inspired more than their fair share of nerd rage, the cartoons have been universally loved. So give us more! The Star Wars cartoons so far have focused on the events right before Anakin's fall (The Clone Wars), after his descent to the Dark Side (Rebels), or during the events of Disney's sequel trilogy (Resistance). We won't count Droids and Ewoks from the 1980s because Lucasfilm doesn't either. That means there's a lot of story left on the table.
There are plenty of stories left to tell featuring Han, Luke and Leia, either during the Rebellion or after the fall of the Empire. For that matter, an animated Han Solo prequel probably would've been more warmly received than Solo: A Star Wars Story, which is still the only Star Wars movie to bomb at the box office. Of course, the cartoon doesn't have to be about characters that are already famous. Kids love Star Wars, so how about a story about kids? Specifically the Younglings being trained at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Sure, the show probably needs to skip over what actually happened to them (death by Darth Vader is a little intense for a cartoon), but it'd still make a good series.
A Hogwarts cartoon would be magical
While a Harry Potter sequel way down the road (we're talking at least a decade) would be kind of cool, let's be honest — seven books, eight movies, and a two-part play is a lot of time to spend on the adventures of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley. Make no mistake, if Warner Brothers made a pointless sequel and called it Harry Potter and the Shameless Cash Grab, fans would still show up to watch it, and it would make enough money to buy a small country. However, for a cartoon series, we'd like to see something a little different but still set in the magical, wizarding world borne from J.K. Rowling's imagination.
Hogwarts is a school, after all, so surely there are plenty of other stories taking place there, either before or after Harry Potter showed up. We know from the books that Hogwarts was founded in 990 A.D., so that's just over a millennium's worth of stories to tell. It could be like X-Men: Evolution, which took the action to a high school, or they could be really creative and not have "action" at all. Sort of like Doug, giving kids an safe outlet to deal with familiar issues that pre-teens deal with, albeit in a story involving witches and wizards. With HBO Max hungry for content, Warner Bros. should conjure this cartoon up pronto.
We choose to accept a Mission: Impossible kids' show
Given how associated the series is now with Tom Cruise's big-budget, big-screen theatrics, you may have forgotten that Mission: Impossible was based on a TV show in the first place. We're not suggesting that Paramount should make a cartoon in the style of that TV series, which first ran from 1966-1973 and again from 1988-1990. Intelligent adults with PhDs in International Relations sometimes found themselves scratching their heads over Mission: Impossible's dense, complicated plots, so a cartoon like that would be too much for kids (or us, to be honest).
But an action-heavy series done in the style of the Tom Cruise franchise? Sign us up. The cartoon show could be about the further adventures of Ethan Hunt and tie into the movies. Or they could get creative and do a cartoon about "spy kids" working for the youth version of the IMF. There's precedent for this, with Kim Possible being a big hit, as well as the less well-remembered James Bond Jr. about 007's teenage nephew, which ran for 65 episodes in the early 1990s. Ethan Hunt's teenage niece or nephew battling baddies? It wouldn't be impossible. We would choose to accept it, though the show could self-destruct.
We want a great Avatar cartoon (besides The Last Airbender)
We live in a world where a lot of things defy explanation, leaving us to simply scratch our heads and wonder, "Is this real life?" So maybe this isn't something you've thought a lot about, but consider this — Avatar, the highest-grossing movie of all time for ten years running, with $2.7 billion in global grosses, has still somehow not left much of a pop culture footprint since its release in 2009. Though new films are currently in production (and have been for years), there still haven't been any sequels, prequels, or any "-quels" released to theaters. Sure, there's a ride at Walt Disney World, but that's about it. Shouldn't the biggest movie ever have, y'know ... more?
A great idea would be an Avatar cartoon. And no, we're not talking about Avatar: The Last Airbender. We're talking about an animated series set on Pandora. It can be about Jake Sully and the gang or a spinoff series showing what it's like to grow up as a Na'vi. This would be a major addition to Disney+'s already stellar cartoon lineup and would also help get kiddos excited about the forthcoming Avatar films, since most of them weren't even born yet when the first film came out more than a decade ago. Fingers crossed the sequels come out while they're still children.
What was Superman like as a boy?
Superman is no stranger to the cartoon treatment. The 1940s Max Fleischer cartoon serials were a landmark in animation at a time when America still went to the movies every weekend and listened to the radio every night. More recently, the 1990s Superman: The Animated Series gave the Man of Steel the same reverence as Batman: The Animated Series did for the Dark Knight, and it's arguably the most compelling version of Superman we've gotten on any screen big or small since the glory days of Christopher Reeve.
However you feel about the DCEU, DC's animation division has been killing it for nearly 30 years, so we're always down for more, especially if it gives us more adventures of the Man of Tomorrow. As much as we enjoy seeing Superman in all his red-and-blue glory, we think a prequel would be a fresher take. Superman's teen years and early adulthood have been covered twice, first from 1988-1992 in Superboy and then from 2001-2011 in Smallville. But what about his boyhood? We'd love to see a show about a nerdy, pre-teen Clark Kent navigating elementary and middle school, while discovering his powers for the first time. We bet it would be a big hit on HBO Max, too.
The MonsterVerse is perfect for a cartoon series
King Kong and Godzilla have both been in a lot of cartoon shows over the decades, but we need more! The King Kong Show premiered in 1966, but there wasn't another King Kong cartoon until Kong: The Animated Series in 2000, though there was a smattering of animated movies before and after. Meanwhile, in the late 1970s, Godzilla starred in Hanna-Barbera's The Godzilla Power Hour, a series that was most famous for introducing the world to Godzooky, Godzilla's doofus "son" who for some reason was part dragon, we think? Godzilla: The Series from the late 1990s was a much better cartoon, and as a sequel to 1998's Godzilla, it was better than that film as well.
The storylines of all of these series are basically the same. A ragtag group of scientists/adventurers encounter strange monsters, but when things get out of hand, they can conveniently summon King Kong or Godzilla to save the day. That about covers it, give or take an irritating kid or two. However, the big-screen MonsterVerse franchise envisions a planet beset by monstrous "Titans," a scenario that's tailor-made for a cartoon series. You could even have two series, one for Godzilla and one for Kong, with a multi-episode crossover special, just like Batman and Superman or Spider-Man and the X-Men had back in the day. Anybody else getting goosebumps like they're ten-years old thinking about it?
A Shire show would be a great Saturday morning cartoon
We're anticipating a lot of Tolkien fan outrage here, but hear us out. When you hear "animated Lord of the Rings," the first thing that comes to mind is no doubt the animated films from the late 1970s and early 1980s. This gets a little confusing, but basically, Rankin-Bass made a well-regarded version of The Hobbit in 1977, while Ralph Bashki made a mixed bag The Lord of the Rings in 1978, and then Rankin-Bass made a much-maligned, standalone Return of the King in 1980 as a Hobbit-sequel and a quasi-sequel to Bashki's The Lord of the Rings.
Don't be too hard on yourself if you're confused, as this is more complicated than learning Elvish. Suffice it to say, The Lord of the Rings' animated legacy carries more baggage than Frodo did when he chose to carry the ring. But there's so much to Tolkien's Middle-earth mythology that has yet to be mined (insert Gimli pun here), and an animated series would be the perfect medium for it. Here's an out-there idea — how about a show set in the Shire reminiscent of The Smurfs? Hobbit kids could watch it on Saturday mornings between their first and second breakfasts.
A Fast and Furious cartoon would be a modern-day G.I. Joe
If we're being honest, The Fast and the Furious franchise has already turned into a cartoon, so they might as well make it official. It all started as an urban thriller about a motley group of car thieves and street racers before the series took a sharp left turn around Fast Five and became a globetrotting, over-the-top, super spy action series that would make James Bond blush. Normally, that drastic of a tone shift would spell the critical and commercial demise of a series, but to its credit, The Fast and the Furious franchise has never been better.
So what could make the series even better? A cartoon! Naturally, a kid's cartoon about street gangs who steal cars and race them probably wouldn't fly, but a show about Dom's "family" saving the day from threats both foreign and domestic would be pretty sweet. Think of it like a modern-day, multicultural G.I. Joe. Or it could be a prequel about Dominic Toretto's younger days. After all, most people's teen years are pretty fast and furious anyway.
How has there not been a Pirates cartoon?
If Pirates of the Caribbean came out in the 1980s or 1990s, there would've been a cartoon TV series. No question about it. Alas, it came out in 2003, at a time when movie studios didn't automatically make TV shows based on popular movies. Kids these days really don't realize how rough they have it. And while it's hard to remember, Pirates of the Caribbean was once the hottest franchise in film. Long before Disney had Marvel or Star Wars in their portfolio, the Mouse House's woeful live-action division forced the studio to take a risk and bet $140 million on a movie based on a Disney Land theme park attraction.
Sounds crazy, but the gamble paid off, and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl legged its way to $654 million worldwide. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was even more impressive three years later, earning the biggest opening weekend ever at the time with $135 million, sailing to $1.06 billion worldwide. Alas, still no cartoon. With the film series showing signs of scurvy and Margot Robbie setting sail aboard a female-led Pirates reboot, now might be a good time to remind viewers why they fell in love with the Captain Jack in the first place, only in cartoon form.
A Toy Story cartoon has a friend in us
When it comes to potential cartoon shows, Disney should look no further than Pixar. Granted, we've got Forky Asks a Question and the upcoming Monsters at Work, and yeah, there was a Buzz Lightyear of Star Command series back in the early 2000s. But that's just three shows from one of the giants of the entertainment industry. And there are a lot of obvious contenders when it comes to a cartoon adaptation — Cars, Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, or The Incredibles, for example. However, we think Disney should go back to the source with a cartoon series based on Pixar's first big hit, Toy Story.
There are plenty more adventures for Woody, Buzz and the gang to go on, either targeting an all-ages demographic like the movies or even younger kids, like The Muppet Babies did back in the day. Of course, this hypothetical TV show doesn't have to be about the famous characters at all. If toys come to life all over the world, we'd be down to see a TV series about another cast of toy characters. Just please keep the Randy Newman music.
We'd be mad about a Mad Max cartoon
You're probably thinking we've completely lost it on this one. "A cartoon TV show based on an R-rated movie series? Are you nuts?" Well, maybe we are, but remember, there's a long precedent for kids' cartoons based on R-rated movies — Swamp Thing, Conan the Adventurer, Highlander, The Toxic Avenger, and Mortal Kombat. Heck, Robocop even had two cartoons! We could go on because there's been a lot! Now, we won't argue the artistic merits of these shows or the morality of making kid's cartoons based on inappropriate movies ... we'll just say we'd really like to see a Mad Max cartoon.
Sure, it could be done in a contemporary animation style, and we'd absolutely watch it, but since we're day-dreaming here, then we'd much rather see a Mad Max cartoon done in an old-school, hand-drawn 1980s style. You know what we're talking about. The look could be a bit clunky and crude, a la Masters of the Universe, or more fluid and sleek, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Either way, it would be awesome, and it would bring George Miller's post-apocalyptic world to life.
Indiana Jones needs to have an animated adventure series
Nobody talks about this, but why haven't there been more Indiana Jones movies? Steven Spielberg and George Lucas famously saw Indiana Jones as their James Bond, but the British super spy is far more prolific than the globetrotting archaeologist. While we had two seasons of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, plus tons of novels and comics, the overall number of Indiana Jones adventures seem surprisingly lacking. The reason is probably pretty simple. It's tough to get Spielberg, Lucas, and star Harrison Ford to sign off on a story.
Makes sense for Indy's big-screen adventures, but what about the small screen? An Indiana Jones cartoon would be awesome in any era! Maybe call it The Adventures of Indiana Jones: The Animated Series? Okay, so that title is a bit unruly, but you get the idea. It would be perfect for Disney+ and could even tie into Disney's National Geographic brand, with Indy teaching viewers about different historical events and artifacts. Kinda like how Captain Planet used to give kids advice on how to protect the environment. Of course, it doesn't even have to be Indiana Jones show, either. They could go the spin-off route and do The Adventures of Short Round.