When you think of a movie that blends animation with live-action from your millennial childhood, you almost surely think of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which came out in 1988. But another movie from that era that combined live-action with animation that you might have missed was one of Brad Pitt’s first movies, Cool World. Released in 1992 not long after his breakout role in Thelma and Louise, Cool World was, shall we say, weird. How weird? Well, let’s just recount some of the plot.
Pitt stars as Frank Harris, a recent World War II veteran in the mid-1940s who gets transported to this other, animated dimension called “Cool World” that is full of animated people, aka “doodles.” He ends up becoming a detective within this world, and falls for a doodle named Lonette. But, he can’t consummate his love with Lonette, because there is a rule about humans (aka “noids” in this Cool World) and doodles getting it on — that apparently would cause disruptions between universes. You following so far? Okay.
So, meanwhile, back in the real world, there’s this animator (and prisoner for, you know, murder) Jack Deebs, played by Gabriel Byrne, who has started seeing visions of Cool World, and has become obsessed with a femme fatale in that world called Holli Would (Kim Basinger), drawing all sorts of comics about her. Back in Cool World, Holli knows about Jack and his obsession with her. She wants to be “real” and go to the real world, so she has some goons kidnap Jack and bring him over to Cool World, where she can quickly seduce him (despite Frank telling Jack not to go there with a doodle). You can probably guess that they do get it on, and that turns Holli into a real person, which then causes all sorts of havoc between worlds. In case you haven’t seen this and would like to, we won’t spoil the ending, but it’s definitely a doozy.
Cool World was originally pitched as a much darker, R-rated horror film by Ralph Bakshi, whose original concept art was much more disturbing, with character designs more stylistically similar to Frank Miller’s Sin City. Now, Wikipedia would have you believe that director Bakshi wrote an initial version of the script that the studio then had other writers come in and rewrite. But, according to an interview with co-writer Michael Grais, that’s just not the case. Rather, Grais and his co-writer Mark Victor were brought on shortly after director Bakshi pitched the idea, and they wrote the whole script themselves (with some additional writing from an uncredited Larry Gross). Grais claims that a lot of what they wrote got left on the cutting room floor, with the film that was left becoming a fairly incoherent mess.
Well, the part about the film being an incoherent mess, at least, pretty much everyone agreed upon — when the film was released, it was lambasted by, yeah, everyone. The movie made just $5.5 million in its opening weekend, and would go on to make just $14.1 million total, barely half of the reported $28 million budget. Honestly, it’s crazy that it was ever greenlit in the first place, especially by one of the major studios. But it might have a much more prominent role in the cult film world today if the original intention of the film had actually played out — a darker, raunchier, R-rated live-action/animation hybrid. A much cooler world, if you will. Grais even stated that the original version of the script is one of his favorite things he’s written that didn’t really get made. Still, if you see the version of Cool World that does exist, you won’t forget it, and that’s certainly something.
Did you see Cool World back in the ‘90s? What did you think of it? Let us know in the comments!
- As part of their promotional efforts for the film, Paramount had a cutout of Holli Would put up on the Hollywood sign, which angered local residents.
- Despite the film itself receiving bad reviews, its soundtrack received the opposite, and featured an original song by David Bowie called “Real Cool World,” which was his first solo material in roughly three years.
- Supposedly, director Bakshi originally wanted Drew Barrymore for the role of Holli Would, and also originally had cast Brad Pitt as the character of Jack rather than Frank.
- Kim Basinger was nominated for a Razzie Award for her role as Holli Would, though she didn’t “win” — that honor went to Melanie Griffith that year for her roles in both Shining Through and A Stranger Among Us.
- Though the film didn’t do well at the box office, a handful of different video games were created for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and DOS, as well as the NES, SNES, and Game Boy.
- As part of their promotional efforts for the film, Paramount had a cutout of Holli Would put up on the Hollywood sign, which angered local residents.
- Despite the film itself receiving bad reviews, its soundtrack received the opposite, and featured an original song by David Bowie called “Real Cool World,” which was his first solo material in roughly three years.
- Supposedly, director Bakshi originally wanted Drew Barrymore for the role of Holli Would, and also originally had cast Brad Pitt as the character of Jack rather than Frank.
- Kim Basinger was nominated for a Razzie Award for her role as Holli Would, though she didn’t “win” — that honor went to Melanie Griffith that year for her roles in both Shining Through and A Stranger Among Us.
- Though the film didn’t do well at the box office, a handful of different video games were created for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and DOS, as well as the NES, SNES, and Game Boy.
1 thought on “Cool World: How in the World Did this ‘90s Movie Get Made?”
So happy I grew up with bassinger in cool world not drew Barrymore! Would be amazing if they would allow the original script to be made.