Robert Zemeckis says Disney would never make a ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ sequel

Director Robert Zemeckis has had a long career in Hollywood, and in his time in the industry, he’s seen things shift and change. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, his hybrid live-action and animated comedy from the late 1980s, is widely regarded today as a classic, but during a recent interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Zemeckis suggested that he didn’t think the movie could get made today.

He also acknowledged that there’s a sequel script that exists, but doesn’t think that sequel will ever get made. “There’s a good script [for a sequel] at Disney, but here’s the thing: The current Disney would never make Roger Rabbit today,” he explained. “They can’t make a movie with Jessica in it.”

The director added: “I mean, look what they did to Jessica at the theme park. They trussed her up in a trench coat, you know.”

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? stars Bob Hoskins as a private detective who lives in a world where people coexist with cartoon characters. Hoskins’s PI is hired to investigate whether star Robert Rabbit’s wife Jessica is having an affair on him, but when the owner of Toontown winds up dead, Roger becomes the primary suspect.

The film’s legacy has only grown in the decades since its release, and it is widely considered one of the crowning achievements of Zemeckis’s career.

“We were there when that new regime came in, and they were full of energy, and they wanted to do it. I kept saying, and I sincerely say this, I do believe this, ‘I’m making Roger Rabbit the way I believe Walt Disney would have made it,’” he explained. “The reason I say that is because Walt Disney never made any of his movies for children. He always made them for adults. And that’s what I decided to do with Roger Rabbit.”