Hollywood’s love affair with converting cartoon characters into movies shows no sign of abating just yet: now **Speedy Gonzales **is getting the big screen CG/live-action hybrid makeover.
While he’s best known for his lightening-fast speed, folk hero cred and red kerchief fashion statement, he’s also been a controversial figure through the years, with some pointing up the dodgy racial stereotypes of Mexicans.
Hoping to assuage all that up front, the producers – including comedian/actor George Lopez, his wife Anne Lopez and Jerry Weintraub – are aiming to update the character, with Lopez providing the voice.
“We wanted to make sure that it was not the Speedy of the 1950s -- the racist Speedy," Anne Lopez tells the Heat Vision Blog. "Speedy's going to be a misunderstood boy who comes from a family that works in a very meticulous setting, and he's a little too fast for what they do. He makes a mess of that. So he has to go out in the world to find what he's good at."
Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow, who have experience transferring the likes of Garfield to cinemas – are writing the script, which will follow Speedy’s interaction with a nervous race car driver.
Despite the racial issues, Speedy himself has a long history – he debuted back in the ‘50s as part of the Looney Tunes ensemble, quickly establishing himself as nemesis for Sylvester. He even starred in an Oscar winning short in 1955. We somehow doubt this latest effort will be scooping a little gold statue…