Peter Cullen, the legendary voice actor known for his rumbling performance as Autobot leader Optimus Prime in TheTransformers animated series and live-action franchise, died at his Los Angeles home on Wednesday, according to his manager.
The fatherly Montreal-born actor was known for his extensive vocal credits across television, film, and video games, becoming the face and rallying voice behind the Transformers franchise across its many incarnations, as well as an enduring presence as the gentle-and-drowsy Eeyore in various Winnie The Pooh series and films for Disney. The actor bridged the gap between pop culture fandom and STEM academia as the ambassador for the NASA OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Promotion and Research Challenge (OPSPARC), which awards young students who excel in math, science, technology, and space.
Space would be a recurring motif throughout his life. Cullen began his five-decade career in 1969 as Québécois astronaut Commander Bi Bi Latuque on The Buddies for CFCF (now CTV Montreal). That role led to a gig announcing TheSmothersBrothersComedyHour, the variety show that also launched the careers of Steve Martin, Rob Reiner, and fellow voice actor Lorenzo Music (TheRealGhostbusters, GarfieldAndFriends). From there, Cullen appeared in TheSonny&CherComedyHour alongside Buddies co-star Ted Zeigler beginning in 1971. “It ended up being a series and for four years I, you know, I could make the house payments and lived happily ever after,” he told NPR’s AllThingsConsidered in 2014.
After the Sonny&Cher TV run ended in 1974, Cullen’s career consisted of supporting voice credits in animated series such as Scooby-DooAndScrappy-Doo, TheSmurfs, and Spider-ManAndHisAmazingFriends (where he voiced characters such as Mysterio, Red Skull, and the Hulk). His willingness to lend his voice to vivid cartoon characters led to an audition for a role that would define his career. “I was living with my brother Larry at the time,” he told NPR. “He had returned from service as a Marine in Vietnam. And I told him one day I was going out to audition for a truck. And he says, ‘a truck?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, but he’s a hero truck.'”
Beginning in 1984, Cullen became the leading voice behind TheTransformers, the popular animated series based on the Hasbro toy line, voicing Optimus Prime until the hero’s untimely demise in 1986’s TheTransformers:TheMovie. That moment proved controversial, sparking public outcry that led to an almost immediate reversal in “The Return Of Optimus Prime,” a two-part epic in TheTransformers‘ third season. After seemingly retiring the character, Cullen kept busy voicing Eeyore in various Disney WinnieThePooh TV and film entries from the late 80s through 2002, reprising the role in 2017’s Disney Junior series, DocMcStuffins.
Naturally, given the lasting mark he left on the franchise and the 80s nostalgia reaching a new apex in the mid-Aughts, Cullen’s time away from Transformers wouldn’t last. He was the only choice to voice the Autobot when Michael Bay launched a live-action version of the franchise in 2007 with Transformers, leading to his reprising the role in five sequels and the 2018 spin-off, Bumblebee.
Cullen also became a cult favorite as the voice of Cartoon Network’s late-night animation block Toonami from 1999 to 2008, lending his gravitas to announcements and interstitials for upcoming episodes and series. His voice was a lulling comfort to night-owl animation enthusiasts, offering a warm-blanket boom to spots ranging from the adorable anime series Hamtaro (“Big things come in small packages!”) to making Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero feel like appointment television.
Among his many animation credits, Cullen also left a mark on monster movies, delivering a guttural performance as the eponymous furry beast in the 1976 King Kong, starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange, and providing the eerie alien clicking noises that put Arnold Schwarzenegger on edge in Predator.
Cullen’s family said in a statement that the Transformers actor “passed away peacefully, surrounded by his loving family—and held in the hearts of his many friends and countless fans worldwide.” The statement went on to ask “that you honor his remarkable legacy by serving your communities and leading others with compassion, integrity and loyalty and always remember ‘be strong enough to be gentle’.”
That phrase—”strong enough to be gentle,” taught to him at a critical stage in his career by his older brother—was Cullen’s governing philosophy throughout his life. Its origin is an anecdote Transformers fans know well, as Cullen was happy to share it at conventions and in interviews. From his 2014 interview with NPR: “[Larry] says, well, if you’re going to be a hero, be a real hero. Don’t be a Hollywood stereotypical thing, you know, the yelling and screaming. He said be strong enough to be gentle. And Larry was that way. I had no idea what the script was going to be. But [the] lines just came out, and I just did my brother Larry.”
Cullen shared this story again at a panel at TFcon in 2018, which you can watch below.
Tim Curry has died. A veteran stage, screen, and voice actor much beloved for his iconic baritone purr and finely-honed sense of sardonic glee, Curry lent his talents to everything from children’s fare like Home Alone 2 and The Worst Witch, to hallmarks of cinematic sexual subversion—as with his very first film role, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, in 1975. TMZ confirmed that Curry died last night in his home in Los Angeles; he was 80.
Among the numerous images burnt into the public consciousness by 20th century film, few are as raucous, confident, or unrelenting as watching Curry’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter strut, prowl, and seduce his way through every other character in Rocky’s sci-fi-inspired menagerie of weirdos, inviting them to do the Time Warp (and other, lewder acts). Curry originated the role in its various stage productions, having previously met writer Richard O’Brien when they were both working on Hair. (The theater would remain one of the great loves of his long life; while Rocky’s Broadway debut was famously disastrous, Curry eventually took home three Tony nominations across his long career, for Amadeus, My Favorite Year, and Spamalot.) He brought that same high-camp energy to the screen for the cult movie adaptation of Rocky, vamping in garters and pearls, asking whatever happened to Fay Wray, and just generally giving the biggest performance imaginable and then some—a key hallmark of the Curry acting technique.
Among the greatest, most gleeful hams of his generation, Curry spent decades absolutely devouring scenery in major productions of all stripes, giving performances that would have been indelibly lessened in the hands of a man more burdened by concepts like “restraint.” It’s not that he wasn’t subtle or nuanced as a performer—anyone who’s watched his comic turns in films like Clue knows how well the man could sell a punchline with little more than the raise of an eyebrow and a slight inflection of tone—it’s just that he seemed to be having so much god-damned fun going over the top, whether exulting in oily satisfaction as the villain Hexxus in FernGully: The Last Rainforest, or threatening Tom Cruise from underneath mountains of prosthetics in Ridley Scott’s Legend. Pennywise, Long John Silver, even simply the smarmy hotel manager from Home Alone 2: These weren’t just movie villains. They were Tim Curry villains, and that told audiences of an entire generation that they were in good (if also extremely evil) hands.
Said identification/deification among younger audiences was helped along immeasurably by Curry’s long career as a voice actor; even ignoring starring roles like baffled dad Nigel on Nickelodeon’s The Wild Thornberry’s, his resume is jam-packed with vocal performances—often attached to names like Maelstrom, Dr. Calamitous, or Skullmaster. (The last one, from the mid-’90s Mighty Max cartoon, pitted him against the late Tony Jay, for a real showdown of deep-voiced British cartoon baddies.) The platonic Tim Curry voice role had much in common with his live-action acting: High-volume, high-energy, and with just enough of a wink to let you know that it was all in good fun. (Not that he didn’t make an occasional mis-step; his let’s-say-challenging performance as a Cajun mystery writer in the first of Sierra’s Gabriel Knight mystery games remains an affectionately goofy touch point for adventurer game players of a certain age.)
In contrast to his public performances—which also encompassed multiple studio albums, Broadway musicals, and more—Curry was a famously private figure; although he shed some of his shyness in later years, his thoughtfulness and quiet in interviews still came through, even when he gamely popped on a Dracula cape to chat about Rocky Horror with Sinbad.
Curry suffered a stroke in 2012, which severely curtailed his mobility, and functionally ended his live-action acting career. (He continued to voice act, including taking over the role of the Emperor for Cartoon Network’s Star Wars: Clone Wars.) He leaves behind a legacy of beloved characters, alongside a dark chuckle and winking gleam that echo through the last 50 years of the history of television, film, and more.
Dolly Parton, an entertainer and philanthropist with a nearly seven-decade career, has died. Her team confirmed the news in a statement. “A rhinestone life that shone bright enough for the world to see, Dolly will forever stand as an inspiration not only through her timeless music and prolific songwriting, but also her wit, warmth, and kindness that made us all feel like family,” it reads. “Dolly Parton’s legacy is one of love, compassion, and resilience.” A cause of death was not shared, but Parton said last week that she was experiencing “hard times with [her] health.” She was 80 years old.
Across music, film, television, and giving, Parton was an American icon. Parton got her start performing as a child before penning hits like “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You,” “9 To 5,” and countless others. In the 1980s, she courted a new audience with roles in films like 9 To 5 and Steel Magnolias. As a personality, she was among the most recognizable figures in popular culture, serving as the face of the Dollywood theme park in Tennessee. Parton was also well-known and admired for her charitable giving, particularly her work with the Imagination Library, which provided free books to children every month up until their fifth birthdays.
Born in a one-room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in Tennessee, Parton was one of 12 children. Her humble beginnings were frequently referenced in her music, and she was passionate about music from a young age. She recalled performing for “my brothers and sisters and chickens and the dogs with a tin can as a make-believe microphone” in a 2010 interview with Performing Songwriter. Of course, it wouldn’t take long before she began performing for bigger audiences. Her first singing job came on the Farm And Home Hour when she was ten years old. “It’s funny, I was on TV before we owned one,” she said.
By the time she was 20, Parton had established herself as a successful Nashville songwriter. She released her first full-length album, Hello, I’m Dolly, in 1967, the same year she reached a wider audience with a regular recurring spot on The Porter Wagoner Show. For years, her biggest successes were the duets she released with Wagoner. However, she eventually decided to strike out on her own, telling People last year, “I couldn’t be Porter’s girl singer forever because God had a bigger purpose for me, and I had bigger dreams of my own.”
Her biggest solo hit at the time came in 1973 with “Jolene,” a song that has since been recorded by a number of artists and frequently considered among the greatest songs ever written. Years later, a story circulated that Parton wrote “Jolene” the same day she wrote another of the greatest songs of all time: “I Will Always Love You.” However, Parton clarified that she had merely written the two classics within a matter of days. Written originally about Parton’s professional break with Wagoner, Whitney Houston’s 1992 recording of the track went on to become one of the best-selling singles of all time; Parton later recalled having to pull her car over the first time she heard it because she was so overwhelmed with emotion.
In the second half of the 1970s, Parton began to reach a broader audience. Her 1977 album Here You Come Again sold one million copies. She performed televised specials with Cher and Carol Burnett, earning an Emmy nomination for the former. In 1979, she won her first Grammy Award; she would eventually earn 11 out of 54 nominations. But her biggest crossover moment yet would come in 1980 when she made her film debut opposite Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda in 9 To 5. Following the lives of three underappreciated female office workers who conspire to get revenge on their chauvinistic boss, the film has since become a comedy and feminist classic. Casting Parton was Fonda’s idea, who noted that the “humanity” in Parton’s music made her believe that she could act. The title track from the film became Parton’s first number one hit on the pop charts and won two Grammys.
By the 1980s, Parton was a cemented cultural icon. The decade was her most prolific in terms of film acting; she went on to appear in The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, Rhinestone, and Steel Magnolias in the remaining years of the decade. In 1986, she lent her name and energy to Dollywood, a theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee that has since been rated among the best in the world. She also released eight albums in the remainder of the decade, and while her film career slowed in the following decade, her musical output did not.
In the 1990s, Parton focused further on her charity work and business, becoming, usually lovingly, caricatured in popular culture, exposing a younger generation to her work. Indeed, younger millennials and older zoomers are fairly likely to have learned about her from an appearance on Reba or Hannah Montana as from “Jolene.” (Parton was Miley Cyrus’ godmother.) Or perhaps they know her from the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which she founded in 1995 as part of the Dollywood Foundation to provide free books to children up to age five. By 2026, the library had sent books to an estimated 120 million children around the world, and sends about 3 million free books per month. In 2020, it was also revealed that Parton had donated $1 million to vaccine research that ultimately helped yield the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
Even after her death, Parton has new work on the horizon. Later this year, Dolly: A True Original Musical will premiere on Broadway, bringing her life story to the stage. Last year, Parton released Star Of The Show, about her career performing on stage. “I’m at that point in my life where I just want to be able to do good things that can be carried on,” she said at the time. “I’m proud of my legacy so far, and I hope to just continue to do things that might be of use to other people.” There is no doubt that her work, both on stage and behind the scenes, will continue to help people for decades to come. Fans are encouraged to leave messages at dollyparton.com or make donations to the Imagination Library.
A police department in Florida used “decoy” Flock cameras that an officer 3D-printed at home to “bait” would-be vandals. Police officers monitored the fake cameras for days, then charged a man with three felonies after he cut down and destroyed one of the plastic devices. The police department in question refuses to release any information about how the decoy operation was devised or carried out and claims there is zero paper trail whatsoever about the operation.
Oviedo, Florida mayor Megan Sladek said she “had NO idea” that this was happening and said she was “speechless” over the sting operation, which was first reported by News 6 Orlando. The arrest shows that police have escalated their attempts to catch potential Flock vandals, and that some departments have dedicated significant resources into doing so. Sladek told 404 Media that the 3D-printed camera in question was “free.”
Despite the decoy camera being worth, at most, several dollars worth of plastic filament, Evan Meyer was charged with three felonies: attempted larceny/grand theft, criminal mischief of property damage worth more than $1,000, and property crimes against computer equipment supplies, according to an arrest report obtained by 404 Media. The arrest report states that the operation was devised after several Flock cameras in Oviedo were stolen in late July and early August.
“Several of our Flock Safety cameras were stolen between 7/23/2026 -8/3/2026 out of the Lockwood Blvd. corridor and we replaced them with clone style Flock cameras. These Flock ‘bait’ cameras were made to closely resemble that of real Flock cameras but did not cost the same amount nor collect any data within the device,” the arrest report states. Meyer was arrested shortly after midnight Thursday after knocking the 3D-printed fake camera off a pole with a pair of garden shears and destroying it.
“When asked how much he believes the camera costs to replace, he stated approximately $1,000-$5,000 proving that Meyer knew it was an expensive real piece of equipment and not a fake replica,” the police report states. “The actual cost to replace our Flock camera is valued at $800.00 plus any installation fees. Meyer advised he has been hearing all the negative things online about the misuses of Flock cameras (specifically the CEO of Flock Safety) and decided to knock the one down which was closest to his house. Meyer grabbed his father's pruning shears from the garage, walked down the street (south from his house) and was tall enough to cut the mount off and then smashed the camera on the ground.”
The arrest report implies that because Meyer thought that Flock cameras were expensive and because he didn’t know it was a decoy that he could be charged with attempted grand theft and other charges that carry more consequences.
The operation is reminiscent of Amazon “package sting” operations that several police departments attempted several years ago, in which empty Amazon boxes were placed on people’s porches while police officers watched. Those sting operations resulted in zero known arrests.
The Oviedo Police Department has thus far refused to release almost any information about the operation outside of what was said in the police report, and has repeatedly claimed to 404 Media that public records about how the fake camera were made do not have to be released because they have to do with an ongoing criminal investigation. The department first claimed that it has zero public records whatsoever about the fake device from before the arrest, then claimed that any and all records are exempt from release.
A representative for the Oviedo Police Department told 404 Media that “The decoy FLOCK camera was produced by an officer at their home using their personally owned 3D printer and donated to the agency Our agency does not own a 3D printer therefore does not have design, planning and creation of the alleged decoy or replica cameras before the arrest, including the communications and presentations through which that work was discussed.” It said there are “no meeting minutes, no text messages, and no emails regarding the production of a decoy FLOCK camera prior to the arrest on 8/20/2026.”
Mayor Sladek posted on Facebook that she was “speechless” over the operation, and that “transparency is so important.”
"My 2 cents: there are 2 completely separate issues in play here, and they're tangled up in an unfortunate way. ISSUE 1: VANDALISM IS WRONG. I don't care if it's a Flock camera, a piece of art, or graffiti in a public space, it's not right. The police caught a person who engaged in destroying public property, and that's what we hired them to do. They did their job,” she wrote. “ISSUE 2: on Monday, just days before this incident, a majority of COUNCIL AGREED TO CONSIDER ENDING FLOCK. There is a timeline of events related to installing decoy cameras, and somewhere in that timeline, City Council instructed staff to prepare a resolution to end the use of Flock in Oviedo. While it is irrelevant to the issue of vandalism, when the fake cameras were fabricated and installed relative to a very public discussion about their potential discontinuation is something I would like to know.”
In an email to 404 Media, Sladek said that “the whole thing is very interesting from a legal perspective. Mayor is a part-time job here in Oviedo, and I'm an attorney by day, so I'm probably looking at this with a bit different lens than the average person. Even if the guy knew it was a fake camera, that would still make it art, and it would still be vandalism.”
“I became aware of the camera's existence when I heard about it from a resident who saw it on the news, and shortly after that, my first questions were about the cost and process,” she added. “Can't do much better than free, and the effort did result in someone hopping up a pole and attempting to take it down. What is not known is whether the person who removed the first camera at that location is the same as the person who removed the decoy. It would be interesting to know if the one arrested has any prior criminal history or if this was a first offense. How to charge is up to the state's attorney, but you'll see on the police report when it arrives that the person arrested believed that he was damaging property valued at a much greater price point than the actual value was. “
In a Facebook comment, Sladek posted several responses to questions that Oviedo police chief Dale Coleman gave her. Coleman said that he approved the plan, and that “supervisors have latitude how they go about solving a crime operations [sic] like this are done whenever there is a reasonable chance of success. This operation is similar to a drug operation or a theft ring at the mall. CID has done this many of these and know what is needed to do it lawfully.”
Coleman told Sladek that there were multiple cameras installed last Sunday, and said that police officers were watching the cameras all night between Sunday and Thursday, when Meyer was arrested.
It is not clear which 3D printed plastic Flock camera model the police officer used, but 404 Media found various Flock camera replicas on popular free 3D printer model sites.
The animated/live-action Looney Tunes hybrid comedy Coyote Vs. Acme is finally seeing the light of day three years after Warner Bros. Discovery shelved the movie for a tax write-off. Distributor Ketchup Entertainment had previously released The Day The Earth Blew Up, the first all-animated Looney Tunes feature, which was also initially shelved by WB. For cinephiles and Tunes fans alike, the release of these two filmsseems miraculous, since both embattled movies will finally reach audiences in versions that reflect their creators’ original visions. The same couldn’t be said, though, for the last time the Tunes hit the big screen in an original film. In fact, director Joe Dante tells The A.V. Club that Warner Bros. only released 2003’s Looney Tunes: Back In Action “because they spent so much money to make it.”
On paper, it seemed like a no-brainer to hire Dante (Gremlins, Small Soldiers), a cartoon lover among cartoon lovers, to direct a Looney Tunes film. But that passion didn’t make it into Looney Tunes: Back In Action, which lacks Dante and his cartoon stars’ signature antic wit. So why was this particular Looney Tunes project micro-managed to death? Why has Dante repeatedly called the film “the longest year and a half of my life”? Does anything in Looney Tunes: Back In Action still reflect Dante and his collaborators’ obvious affection for Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and their fellow wisecracking ‘toons?
Looney Tunes: Back In Action was the first original feature starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and their cartoon pals since the soulless but profitable Space Jam. Other planned Space Jam sequels fell through, including a basketball-themed sequel with Michael Jordan and a Jackie Chan genre mashup called Spy Jam. By sheer morbid coincidence, the production of Looney Tunes: Back In Action also began one month after the death of formative Looney Tunes writer-director Chuck Jones.
Dante is a big Jones fan (Jones makes a cameo in Gremlins), and he’d even written an unproduced behind-the-scenes comedy called Termite Terrace, a playful homage to Jones’ time working on the Looney Tunes cartoons. Dante also shared Jones’ disdain for Space Jam since, according to Dante, it didn’t “adhere to [Jones’] view of what the characters should be like.” WB wouldn’t make Termite Terrace, but they were eager to make another Space Jam. Dante, on the other hand, wanted to make “the anti-Space Jam.”
“I frankly didn’t think the [Back In Action] script was very good,” Dante says. “But I did think that if I didn’t make it, somebody who was gonna dance to Warner Bros.’ tune would, and it’s gonna be another Space Jam-ish movie. So my goal was to make something that I thought Chuck would like.”
Dante soon found himself caught between the demands of the studio’s marketing and merchandising reps, who were mainly concerned with how to sell the Looney Tunes characters, and the heads of WB, whom Dante says, “had no affection or interest in these characters or this project.” Rewrites continued through the summer of 2003, when the movie was originally scheduled to be released, and only stopped about a month before its revised November premiere.
Jokes were endlessly rewritten by an estimated 29 writers, all but one of whom went uncredited and most of whom didn’t seem to know what they were doing. An Oscar-winning screenwriter was asked for his feedback, and started by asking if Bugs Bunny has to say, “What’s up, doc?” “And that was just the first hour of the meeting,” Dante sighs. Sometimes, after thoroughly rewriting jokes and plot points, Dante and his colleagues returned to what was written in the first place. He adds that the version of the movie that was eventually released had a completely different beginning, middle, and end. “It was a real boondoggle,” Dante says. But unlike recent Tunes endeavors under the current WBD administration, shelving the project never seemed likely, since the studio kept throwing money at the production: “They’ve got an investment to protect,” Dante explains. But that didn’t mean the film was safe.
Original screenwriter Larry Doyle left the production after a year following disagreements about characterizations, gags, and a slew of other changes. Doyle didn’t see eye-to-eye with Dante or animation director Eric Goldberg, and tensions eventually got so bad that, according to Dante, a typical brainstorming session couldn’t begin until Doyle left the room. “Larry is a very abrasive guy,” Dante says, even though he was loyal to the Tune philosophy. “He was adamant about having the characters be true to themselves.”
Dante also almost quit, but didn’t. “When you’ve put in as much work as it takes to direct anything it’s pretty hard to leave it unfinished,” he says. But he described the WB he worked with on Back In Action as a bifurcated organization at war with itself, split between “the half who cares about what they’re doing, and the other half who cares about making money and has no respect for the people who make the movies.”
The movie’s convoluted story—Bugs Bunny (Joe Alaskey) chases Daffy Duck (also Alaskey) across Nevada with his human pals, aspiring stuntman Damian “D.J.” Drake (Brendan Fraser) and brand-obsessed studio stooge Kate Houghton (Jenna Elfman)—was majorly overhauled following a negative test screening. Costly reshoots were then ordered by the studio, who added, among other things, a new concluding half-hour set in outer space, which was shot, but ultimately not used. “[The new ending] didn’t help,” Dante said. “It didn’t hurt either, it just wasn’t as good as what we had.” If nothing else, it contributed to the film’s oversized budget, which The New York Times estimated ran higher than $100 million.
“I don’t think the makers of [The Day The Earth Blew Up and Coyote Vs. Acme] got the same kind of pushback,” Dante says. “Once the movies were greenlit, the studio people likely said: ‘Okay, go ahead, make your movie, and then we’ll decide whether we want it.'”
Ironically, Dante and the writers received no feedback about their corporate-critical human characters—whether that was Kate and her defining obsessions with branding and “synergy,” or Steve Martin’s clueless Acme executive Mr. Chairman, whom Martin has described as a “supertwit.” Bugs and the other animated characters, on the other hand, received scads of notes and suggestions for rewrites.
Speaking to The New York Times in 2003, Dante remembered getting some negative feedback about cartoon violence from early test screenings. “We couldn’t not deal with that, even though I think it’s ridiculous,” he said. ”I don’t think that Roadrunner cartoons ever made any kid go out and shoot their brother or put the dog in the microwave. I think kids are smarter than that. However, parents—who are the people who go to the previews and fill out the cards and recommend movies to other parents—feel dodgy about the subject of violence and cartoons. Well, sorry: Elmer Fudd comes from an agrarian society where people shoot their food.”
Thankfully, Goldberg at least seemed to understand and appreciate Dante’s struggle to keep the Looney Tunes gang behaving authentically. Dante tried to get Goldberg a co-director credit for the movie, considering there was so much animation in the film, but the Directors Guild Of America wouldn’t agree to it. They only cared about the live-action elements, which was much more of a challenge for Dante, even if he’d had experience with projects that paired human actors with puppets.
Acting opposite a co-star that you can’t react to is a “particular talent,” Dante says. Most Back In Action scenes filmed with cartoon characters were shot at least three times, using a “stuffie,” or a giant stuffed animal version of the characters, as well as a shiny mirror ball on a stick to reflect where all the lights are on set for the computer animators who would later add the Looney Tunes cast members. Fraser was a natural, with the ability to “focus on some place in the distance that is not the wall, but some place in between.” While Elfman required more coaching, she still got it figured out. The cast wasn’t the problem. “It’s a difficult thing to do and it takes time,” Dante says. “I’m very happy with all the actors.”
While the final film still features welcome onscreen cameos from Dante co-conspirators, as well as a vast storehouse of allusions to classic cartoons (like footage from Tex Avery’s “I Love To Singa”), the movie is undeniably hamstrung by the many cooks that flitted in and out of Warner Bros.’ maxi-sized kitchen. Dante remembers his disappointment after he attended the movie’s premiere: “It was so loud. I thought, ‘I’ve just made another one of those annoying, loud movies that I don’t like.'”
Some critics found more than a little to like when Looney Tunes: Back in Action first came out, even if they damned it with faint praise. In the L.A. Times, Manohla Dargis wrote that the movie was “a distinct improvement over the dreary synergy of Space Jam.” Others spent more time speculating as to what went wrong behind the scenes. Film JournalInternational‘s Ethan Alter suggests that, while it’s hard to know who to blame for the movie’s shortcomings, it’s “best to chalk this zany mess up to a case of too many conflicting ideas and no strong overarching vision.”
While Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has no “overarching vision” besides seeking tax breaks, his studio was at least considerate enough (eventually) to license both The Day The Earth Blew Up and Coyote Vs. Acme to a more caring distributor. While Dante didn’t get the same consideration with Looney Tunes: Back In Action, he doesn’t hold any grudge against the studio—even if he’s not waiting around for their call.
“It’s not the same company,” Dante says. “The executives I was having problems with have all gone away. That said, there’s no chance they ask me to make Termite Terrace now. I would certainly consider it if they did. I just think the time’s passed.”
As for the Looney Tunes films of today (like The Day The Earth Blew Up, which he calls a “return to form”), Dante is just happy that they’re reaching audiences who’ll appreciate them. “It’s nice to know that there are people out there that still care about this kind of thing,” Dante says, “and that these movies are now getting seen by people who seem to really like them.”
Despite a little Moana and Grogu hiccup, Disney has had a pretty good year. Its latest co-production, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, just swung across $2 billion, joining Toy Story 5 in the top three biggest movies of the year. In a letter to shareholders this month, Disney announced revenues are up, and that the Toy Story franchise alone has brought in an estimated $16 billion for The Walt Disney Company. It hyped new resorts, parks, and cruise ships built on the strength of its family-friendly brand. To celebrate the bright future, Disney’s shiny new C.E.O., Josh D’Amaro, who took over for Bob Iger (Iger has since gone on to buy the LA Lakers with Jared Kushner’s brother), notified more than 200,000 employees that as of 2027, they can no longer enroll their spouses in the company’s insurance plan if the spouse can get those benefits from another job.
This is per Puck, which reports Disney’s decision will kick “thousands” off the company’s plans and force them to pay more for inferior coverage, which will “likely impact lower-paid workers and hourly employees most.” It’s all part of Disney’s employee loyalty program, “Total Rewards,” a new internal benefits system that allows those who make that Disney magic possible to experience the wonder of a Disney price hike. However, while it might seem egregious, heartless, and cruel for a $185 billion company to treat its workers like a Disney+ subscriber, an internal memo obtained by Puck reveals a very sympathetic reason for kicking its employees’ spouses off their healthcare: “Like many companies, we’re navigating a number of factors, including rising healthcare costs, evolving company needs, and shifts across the industry.”
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