Tom and Jerry: The Movie

Development

There were numerous attempts to make a Tom and Jerry feature film, primarily in the 1970s after the successful reruns of the original cartoons and the airings of the new TV animated versions (although there have been debatable possibilities of making attempts in the golden age of cartoons). Chuck Jones, who previously worked on his take on the characters in his studio MGM Animation/Visual Arts, wanted to make a Tom and Jerry film but later dropped the idea due to not finding a suitable script to work with.

In December 1978, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer announced plans to adapt Tom and Jerry into a live-action feature film.^[1] By June 1980, writer David Newman and producer Martin Erlichman were reportedly attached to the project with Dustin Hoffman and Chevy Chase reportedly in consideration to voice the characters possibly suggesting that the film would be animated.^[1][4] By June 1987, it was reported that the film was still in active development with MGM anticipating a $6 to 7 million production.^[1]

The later idea to make a Tom and Jerry film came about from Joseph Barbera who remained an executive consultant on the film.^[5] Due to the large amount of his career he had spent on Tom and Jerry shorts and the impact they had left he felt it was a shame to see such a great property lying unused.^[6] Barbera eventually learned that Turner Entertainment Co. had acquired the rights to Tom and Jerry after briefly acquiring and then sell MGM while retaining the film negatives of their film catalogue.^[6] Barbera met with then Turner Vice President Roger Mayer with Barbera telling off his involvement in the creation of Tom and Jerry and suggesting the possibility of doing either a television special or Feature film with the characters, with Barbera hoping for the latter.^[6] After the meeting concluded with Mayer seemingly uninterested in a Tom and Jerry project, Barbera received a call from Mayer saying Turner was interested and forwarded a $75,000 advance to develop a script, artwork, and partial storyboard for the project.^[6] Sometime between August 1987 and 1988, Barbera then presented the pitch to Ted Turner who liked the pitch and agreed to finance half the project with Hanna-Barbera Productions.^[6][1] Barbera managed to set up a meeting with friend and then 20th Century Fox head Joe Roth and President of Productions Roger Birnbaum and presented the same pitch that had impressed Ted Turner with the two impressed and the remaining half of support for the film sealed.^[6] However, momentum of the film was curtailed when Hanna-Barbera's parent company Taft Broadcasting experienced financial difficulties from a decrease in television revenues prompting the sale of Hanna-Barbera to Great American Broadcasting.^[6] Due to concerns of Great American about the advanced ages of Barbera and William Hanna, David Kirschner was hired to work with the two in running the studio and one of Kirschner's first actions was telling Barbera he didn't want to do a Tom and Jerry movie despite the pitch having already been sold and backing obtained.^[6] Barbera tried to find a way to keep the project going, but Kirschner had already met with Barry Diller at Fox and convinced them to drop Tom and Jerry in favor of one of his own projects, that being Once Upon a Forest, though Barbera bore Kirschner no ill will do to it being the nature of the business.^[6][7]

By February 1990, it was reported that the film had been put on hold due to story issues stemming from the muteness of the titular characters causing story problems.^[1] Turner ended up putting the project Turnaround while Hanna-Barbera went through a re-evaluation and alternative partnership was struct with Germany based company Media Special International and animation company Film Roman.^[1] Turner Entertainment Co. would eventually acquire Hanna-Barbera and all its assorted properties in December 1991, and increased the budget for the Tom and Jerry movie to $15 million.^[1] According to Barbera, Turner was still supportive of the project even after Fox dropped out and on Barbera's recommendation Phil Roman of Film Roman as Barbera had worked with him before.^[6] Barbera met with Michael Jackson as Jackson was an avid cartoon fan and wanted to discuss a potential project they could work on with Barbera hopeful that Jackson could contribute to the soundtrack for the film. However, Great American Communications sent a memo saying they had no interest in working with Michael Jackson and nothing further came of the idea.^[6]

In the early development of the script by Dennis Marks, some of its dialogue and actions in other scenes, including the main characters talking throughout at the beginning before encountering Puggsy and Frankie, had to be taken out. Originally, a comedic sequence before the further events of the duo talking was drafted as a prologue and homage to the original cartoons before the credits, but it was later decided to drop the idea and it was partially replaced by the animated slapstick scenes during the credits for the sake of moving forward with the story.^[8]

Michael Peraza was hired by production manager Mike Wolf in November 1990 to serve as art director for the film.^[5] Peraza was given the script by Dennis Marks and did not like what was presented as the titular Tom and Jerry were not present all that much in the script and the primary focus was on the characters of stray dog Pugsy and Frankie da Flea.^[5] Peraza felt the script, which had been around for a long time, read more like a Saturday-morning cartoon and the script was restructured to address some of the issues. Peraza felt the end result was an improvement from the incarnation of the script but still expressed dissatisfaction with certain character motivations lacking clarity.^[5] Peraza also was disappointed with the humor in the film as the team had wanted the film to go to the level of Ren and Stimpy or Itchy & Scratchy but were only able to push the humor so far with Peraza discussing the end result as the team having "pushed the Tom & Jerry envelope as far as we could".^[5] The characters of Pugsy and Frankie were deemed necessary due to the fact that Tom and Jerry don't talk and that a film with two stars who don't speak would not play with audiences.^[5] There were discussions about having the characters act in pantomime or usage of inner monologues similar to Garfield before ultimately deciding to have the characters speak as having mute leads would have felt too much like a handicap.^[5] Many of the characters were given cars as the producers requested a car chase sequence in the vein of Wacky Races complete with vehicles matching the characters' personalities. The original script featured a fat Southern sheriff similar to Buford T. Justice from Smokey and the Bandit, but due to Peraza feeling the trope was stale he convinced producers Phil Roman and Joseph Barbera to allow him to change the character into a performing ship captain with a split personality that manifest through his parrot hand puppet.^[5]

Animation

Animators on Tom and Jerry: The Movie include Eric Thomas, Art Roman, Doug Frankel, Tony Fucile, Steven E. Gordon, Leslie Gorin, Dan Haskett, Brian Robert Hogan, Gabi Payn, Irven Spence and Arnie Wong. Some animation was outsourced to Wang Film Productions in Taiwan, where James Miko and Aundre Knutson served as supervising directors. Additional animation was provided by The Baer Animation Company and Creative Capers Cartoons. The computer animation for the vehicles was provided by Kroyer Films.

Songs

Original songs performed in the film include:

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 14% of 14 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.4/10.^[10] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.^[11]

Joseph McBride of Variety gave the film a negative review, saying that "Tom and Jerry Talk won't go down in film history as a slogan to rival Garbo Talks."^[12] Charles Solomon of the Los Angeles Times panned the film's songs and Phil Roman's direction.^[13] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post criticized the dialogue between the cat and mouse and said that the voices "don't fit the characters". Hinson also complained that the musical numbers are "as forgettable as they are intolerably bouncy and upbeat".^[14]

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film two thumbs down on Siskel & Ebert. Although they praised the animation style for its faithfulness to the theatrical shorts, neither thought that it was a good idea to give dialogue to the two characters with Ebert stating that by making the duo talk "the movie loses the pure comedy of the cartoon shorts where everything depended on situation and action." Additionally, they felt that the film suffered from a lack of slapstick action compared to the shorts, and criticized the story for giving the character of Robyn Starling more screen time than the titular characters.^[15] Vincent Canby of The New York Times was more positive in his review; he praised Mancini's score and the musical numbers, and felt that "[the characters of] Tom and Jerry have charm."^[16]

Box office

Tom and Jerry: The Movie released theatrically on July 30, 1993 in the United States and Canada alongside Rising Sun, Robin Hood: Men in Tights and So I Married an Axe Murderer.^[2] Ranking number fourteen at the North American box office, the film grossed $3,560,469 worldwide.^[2][17]

According to Joseph Barbera, the film was a massive hit in Germany and played in theaters for months after release.^[6]