May 21 2008'Earthworm Jim' Movie Announced, Only 14 Years After the Game
If your thumbs still wear the callused battle scars of the 16-bit revolution (god knows mine do), you surely remember the Earthworm Jim series. Notable for it's creative design (Professor Monkey-For-A-Head!), fluid gameplay (until the third one, at least), and the ability to wrench your own body out of a suit for use as a whip, the series and its characters ultimately fell out of the hands of their creator, Doug TenNapel, and into the plot of a poorly-animated WB series before fading to obscurity, left only in our hearts and save games.
Or so it seemed! Until Interplay, owners of the character, announced last month that they're back at work with TenNapel to develop a new video game, animated series, and feature film. Said TenNapel on his forum:
I've done a few new sketches and he's really fun, funny and just more solid as a character. I have a ten page feature script treatment that I just finished to get a look at the character...see what a feature might look like.I'm not going to say much more. I don't want EWJ to be all about talking up a character...I'm putting the goods down on paper. We'll give you updates over on the Interplay site and I'll probably start a blog to let all of the Jim fans in on the progress of the character, game, movie, etc.
I can only say that I really want to make him shine so you won't get some half-baked, heartless piece of crap made to exploit you for more money.
This seems good. Right?
Thanks to Julian for providing the unsubstantiated notion that led to me researching more.
Reader Comments
1. Brianna - May 21, 2008 12:48 PM
omgz awesome, these were my favorite games when I was little! I hope they incorporate the blind cave salamander level with trivia game show!
2. GirlBeaverPig - May 21, 2008 1:06 PM
Yay, my teenhood hero ...
3. Stuey - May 21, 2008 1:35 PM
I looooved that game. It was the best.
4. sinic - May 21, 2008 1:51 PM
"when i was little"
I was old and i remember staring at this game on a 10" screen high on acid.
Flashback?
GO EARTHWORM JIM
5. Julian - May 21, 2008 2:31 PM
Hooray for my "unsubstantiated notion". In all honesty it never occurred to me to say more than i did. Geez! I'm at work I dont have time to be writing this and that about the EWJ movie. I have to get paid. Those strippers aren't going to put nickels in their slots themselves. . . I'm cheap.
6. jesse - May 21, 2008 4:11 PM
Ohhhhhhhhhhh yes. Who didn't fucking love that game? It was easily one of the best of our time.
7. Tom - May 21, 2008 4:26 PM
I just want you to know that one of the reasons I read this site is that occasionally you report a videogame adaptation without shoehorning in a reference to how Uwe Boll often makes bad videogame adaptations. Long may it continue. (Your lack of clumsy reference to geek whipping-boys, that is).
8. pdrunk - May 21, 2008 4:50 PM
Earthworm Jim was an awesome game (which I think managed to make it into a cartoon) but while I look forward to a decent movie that will hopefully be as funny and original as was the game, I'm feeling over videogame adaptations. Unless of course if it's "Dig Dug in 3-D." That shit would be boss.
9. Phil - May 21, 2008 6:54 PM
Glad to see they have Doug Tennapel working on this!
In the last few years he's been creating comics which have a knack for balancing the supernatural and wierd (ie: stuff like giant alien space eels, a boy who comes out of a whale's mouth after said whale falls like a meteor to earth, robots and cowboys fighting, etc) with some honest characterization.
"Creature Tech" is especially good because it shows a guy wrestling with his faith while also battling demon cats, and he has a giant praying mantis sidekick.
The only question is, will Earthworm Jim be infused with Christian morality and message, as some of Tennapel's more recent comics work has been?
And is he going to be CG in a world of regular humans, like Garfield?
10. Mr. Mason - May 21, 2008 7:41 PM
Anything I would have to say about this amounts to simply DON'T FUCK THIS UP PLEASE.
Also SOCKBABY
11. Dorepoll - May 21, 2008 10:50 PM
Doug is an amazing individual. The amount of clever characters he has created is astounding. My favourite book by him is Iron West, but all of them rock pretty darn hard.
I wouldn't care half as much if he wasn't working on it.
12. Snoodle - May 21, 2008 11:58 PM
I freakin' love Earthworm Jim!! *actually psyched* XD
13. c45j - May 22, 2008 2:23 AM
"..poorly-animated WB series ..."
what? no.
14. Dr. Phil mmkay? - May 22, 2008 10:01 AM
Oh. Hell. Yes. Bring on the Jim.
15. Earthworm Jim - March 28, 2009 11:25 AM
GROOOOOVY