Jessica Rabbit Is ''To Blame'' for No ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' Sequel

Fans have been clamoring for a sequel for decades, but director Robert Zemeckis feels like Jessica Rabbit is the main reason a second film never materialized.

Image Credit: Touchstone Pictures

Jessica Rabbit isn’t bad, she’s just drawn that way… we know. But Who Framed Roger Rabbit director Robert Zemeckis thinks the cartoon femme fatale’s curves might be a little too dangerous for Disney. For those who haven’t seen the 1988 live-action/animation hybrid classic, you might be surprised by how much racy content was allowed in a PG-rated film. There’s kidnapping, voyeurism, drug use, a truly terrifying villain (Christopher Lloyd’s Judge Doom), and the rather grisly murder of a cute cartoon shoe that traumatized an entire generation of kids.

Despite this, Zemeckis believes that Roger’s famously seductive wife, Jessica Rabbit (voiced by Kathleen Turner), is the main reason we haven’t seen a sequel yet. During an interview on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast, the director was asked about a potential Who Framed Roger Rabbit sequel. “There’s a good script [for a sequel] at Disney, but here’s the thing: The current Disney would never make Roger Rabbit today. They can’t make a Jessica movie.”

Zemeckis added that the script in question, written by original screenwriters Peter S. Seamen and Jeffrey Price, simply “will never see the light of day, as good as it is. I mean, look what they did to Jessica at the theme park. They wrapped her in a trench coat, you know.” Zemeckis went on to explain how he was able to get the first film greenlit in the first place. “We were able to do it right at the time when Disney was ready to rebuild,” he said. “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 mean it, I mean it, ‘I’m doing Roger Rabbit the way I think Walt Disney would have done it.’ The reason I say that is because Walt Disney never made any of his movies for kids. He always made them for adults. And that’s what I decided to do with Roger Rabbit.”

Zemeckis is probably right that Disney today can’t make a character like Jessica the way she’s meant to be, but there’s hope!


The plot of Who Framed Roger Rabbit

“Down on his luck, private investigator Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) is hired by cartoon producer R.K. Maroon (Alan Tilvern) to investigate an adultery scandal involving Jessica Rabbit (Kathleen Turner), the sultry wife of Maroon’s biggest star, Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer). But when Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye), Jessica’s alleged lover and owner of Toontown, is found murdered, the evil Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) vows to capture and destroy Roger.”

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