In a move that is sure to please a nation of young ladies (my 9 year old daughter and an 18 year old niece for starters) the LA Times is reporting that the star of the High School Musical films, Zac Efron, has signed on for the live action Jonny Quest movie from Warner Brothers.
Now the idea of 21 year old Efron playing 11 year old Jonny Quest may raise some eyebrows, but worse is the news that WB are thinking of completely renaming the series. It seems “Quest” is a little too similar in theme to “Speed Racer”, which didn’t exactly do too well for them. Perhaps once it would be nice to see big movie companies just going back to basics and realising it wasn’t the genre trappings that killed Speed Racer, it was the rubbishness. Whether Jonny Quest is a huge hit or a massive flop will have nothing to do with the name, that’s for sure.
Personally I think Efron’s a great choice for the movie and in years to come I can really see him becoming a great leading man. He’s certainly got the gorgeous blue eyes for it, but even though he’s only done a few decidedly young adult and tween movies so far, the talent is definitely there as well as the looks.
Jonny Quest was originally created by artist Doug Wildey as a Hanna Barbera cartoon series in 1964. It ran just one season, but has been repeated many, many times since. Since the original series, two updates have been made; The New Adventures in the 80s and The Real Adventures in the 90s. My memories of Jonny Quest come from the Comico comic series that ran in the late 80s and was a great all-ages series, written by William Messner-Loebs and drawn by Wildey and a host of talented artists. But the best thing about Jonny Quest was the wonderful covers that Comico put out:
(Jonny Quest #1, 1986, cover by Doug Wildey)
(Jonny Quest #5, 1986, cover by Dave Stevens. Jonny Quest #11, 1987, cover by Bill Sienkiewicz)
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