Bedrock may be getting ready to rock once again.
Warner Bros. is reportedly in early development on a new live-action “Flintstones” movie, but this time around the story will not necessarily be centered on Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty.
Instead, the next generation is stepping forward.
Ryan Gosling and producing partner Jessie Henderson are developing a new feature through their Open Invite banner that would focus on a grown-up Bamm-Bamm Rubble.
And really, if you are going to bring “The Flintstones” back to live action, shifting the spotlight to Bamm-Bamm is a pretty interesting way to do it.
The project is still very early in development, with Gosling and Henderson currently searching for a writer, so there are plenty of prehistoric-sized blanks still waiting to be filled in.
Still, longtime fans know that an older Bamm-Bamm is not entirely unexplored territory.
“The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show,” which originally aired in the early 1970s, aged both characters into teenagers attending Bedrock High School. Bamm-Bamm and Pebbles were dating, balancing school and their first jobs and even performing together as part of the Bedrock Rockers.
Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty were still around, but the younger generation was finally allowed to take center stage.
That makes the idea of a grown-up Bamm-Bamm-led movie feel less like completely reinventing “The Flintstones” and more like taking one of the franchise’s already-established ideas and pushing it much further.
Of course, Warner Bros. has gone down the live-action road with Bedrock before.
The 1994 “The Flintstones” movie famously brought the animated classic to life with John Goodman as Fred Flintstone, Rick Moranis as Barney Rubble, Elizabeth Perkins as Wilma and Rosie O’Donnell as Betty.
A second film, “The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas,” followed in 2000 with an entirely new cast and a younger take on the characters.
Together, the two movies grossed more than $400 million worldwide.
Now, more than 25 years after Bedrock’s last major live-action theatrical outing, Warner Bros. may be preparing for an entirely different era.
The most interesting question is what exactly an adult Bamm-Bamm story looks like.
Does Pebbles return? Are the original Flintstone and Rubble families still heavily involved? Is this still the familiar prehistoric suburbia we know, or has Bedrock itself evolved alongside its youngest residents?
There is a surprising amount of room to play here.
“The Flintstones” has always worked because underneath the dinosaurs, stone-age appliances and endless prehistoric puns was something incredibly familiar: family, neighbors, work, relationships and the everyday chaos of simply trying to get through life.
Taking Bamm-Bamm into adulthood could give Warner Bros. a way to keep all of that while introducing Bedrock to an entirely new generation.
No director, writer, cast or release date has been announced yet.
For now, it sounds like the quarry is only just opening.
But if Warner Bros. really is ready to return to Bedrock, putting Bamm-Bamm at the center certainly gives this reboot something a little different to bang its club about.
Bedrock may be getting ready to rock once again.
Warner Bros. is reportedly in early development on a new live-action “Flintstones” movie, but this time around the story will not necessarily be centered on Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty.
Instead, the next generation is stepping forward.
Ryan Gosling and producing partner Jessie Henderson are developing a new feature through their Open Invite banner that would focus on a grown-up Bamm-Bamm Rubble.
And really, if you are going to bring “The Flintstones” back to live action, shifting the spotlight to Bamm-Bamm is a pretty interesting way to do it.
The project is still very early in development, with Gosling and Henderson currently searching for a writer, so there are plenty of prehistoric-sized blanks still waiting to be filled in.
Still, longtime fans know that an older Bamm-Bamm is not entirely unexplored territory.
“The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show,” which originally aired in the early 1970s, aged both characters into teenagers attending Bedrock High School. Bamm-Bamm and Pebbles were dating, balancing school and their first jobs and even performing together as part of the Bedrock Rockers.
Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty were still around, but the younger generation was finally allowed to take center stage.
That makes the idea of a grown-up Bamm-Bamm-led movie feel less like completely reinventing “The Flintstones” and more like taking one of the franchise’s already-established ideas and pushing it much further.
Of course, Warner Bros. has gone down the live-action road with Bedrock before.
The 1994 “The Flintstones” movie famously brought the animated classic to life with John Goodman as Fred Flintstone, Rick Moranis as Barney Rubble, Elizabeth Perkins as Wilma and Rosie O’Donnell as Betty.
A second film, “The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas,” followed in 2000 with an entirely new cast and a younger take on the characters.
Together, the two movies grossed more than $400 million worldwide.
Now, more than 25 years after Bedrock’s last major live-action theatrical outing, Warner Bros. may be preparing for an entirely different era.
The most interesting question is what exactly an adult Bamm-Bamm story looks like.
Does Pebbles return? Are the original Flintstone and Rubble families still heavily involved? Is this still the familiar prehistoric suburbia we know, or has Bedrock itself evolved alongside its youngest residents?
There is a surprising amount of room to play here.
“The Flintstones” has always worked because underneath the dinosaurs, stone-age appliances and endless prehistoric puns was something incredibly familiar: family, neighbors, work, relationships and the everyday chaos of simply trying to get through life.
Taking Bamm-Bamm into adulthood could give Warner Bros. a way to keep all of that while introducing Bedrock to an entirely new generation.
No director, writer, cast or release date has been announced yet.
For now, it sounds like the quarry is only just opening.
But if Warner Bros. really is ready to return to Bedrock, putting Bamm-Bamm at the center certainly gives this reboot something a little different to bang its club about.