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Bugs, Brendan Get Looney
by Josh Grossberg
Jun 11, 2002, 2:40 PM PT

After slapstick roles opposite mummies, monkeys and weasels, it figures Brendan Fraser's next role will team him with a certain wascally wabbit and some of the most famous 'toons in the world.

Fraser has signed on to costar with Bugs Bunny, Daffy, Tweety and Taz in Looney Tunes: Back in Action, the first feature for Warner Bros.' revived animation unit since 1996's 90-minute Michael Jordan commercial cum feature, Space Jam.

Like Space Jam and the 1988 hit Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the new Looney Tunes comedy will mix live action and animation. The plot follows Bugs and company as they leave their cozy confines at the Warner Bros. backlot in Hollywood and team with Fraser on an Indiana Jones-like adventure that will take them to such far-flung locales as Africa and Las Vegas in search of the father of Fraser's character and the mythical Blue Diamond.

Gremlins director Joe Dante will helm the new flick, which was written by Larry Doyle, a former Simpsons scribe who also penned the upcoming Ben Stiller-Drew Barrymore dark comedy Duplex. Dante's last picture was 1998's Small Soldiers, which blended computer-generated animation and live action.

"The Looney Tunes are a perfect example of stylish wit that never dates itself," Warner Bros. Pictures president of worldwide production, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, said. "We're really pleased to welcome Brendan Fraser, with his terrific comedic timing and gift for physical comedy, to the Looney Tunes fold."

Fraser should feel right at home in Looney Tunes land, considering he's made a career out of starring in such cartoon-esque flicks as George of the Jungle, Dudley Do-Right, The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. Most recently he starred in last year's live action-animated disaster Monkeybone. And we're not even counting his turn as a funny unfrozen caveman in the 1992 Paulie "The Weasel" Shore bomb, Encino Man (hey, buhhh-dee!).

In addition to Bugs' big-screen return, Warner Bros. also plans to produce a new series of Looney Tunes shorts that will play theatrically in front of other Warners films, as well as on the studio's Website. Additionally, a new Baby Looney Tunes series is set to debut this fall on the Cartoon Network.

Looney Tunes: Back in Action starts shooting July 29 and is slated to hit theaters around Thanksgiving 2003.