Ryan Gosling is cuing up his next project, and it will revisit a beloved TV comedy from the 1960s.
Deadline is reporting that the “Project Hail Mary” star’s Open Invite production company has partnered with Warner Bros. to start the development process on a live-action feature film based on “The Flintstones.”
A Bamm-Bamm Movie
According to the outlet, the film won’t be focusing on the whole Flintstones gang, but on one particular character: Bamm-Bamm Rubble, son of the Flintstones’ next-door neighbors Barney and Betty Rubble.
Per Deadline, the upcoming project will focus on grownup Bamm-Bamm.
At the moment, a writer is being sought to develop the screenplay.
An Earlier Bamm-Bamm Project
In the original TV series — which aired in primetime on ABC from 1961 until 1966 before living on forever via syndicated reruns — Bamm-Bamm was a rambunctious youngster prone to banging his beloved club.
As Deadline reminds, Bamm-Bamm was later depicted as an adult in a Saturday morning cartoon for CBS, which aired during the 1971-’72 TV season, “The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show.”
In that series, Bamm-Bamm had grown into a teenager, dating Pebbles Flintstone while the two attended Bedrock High School.
The other members of the Flintstone and Rubble families made cameo appearances, while Bamm-Bamm and Pebbles also formed their own rock band, the Bedrock Rockers.
Live-Action ‘Flintstones’
If Gosling’s project makes it from development to the screen, it won’t be the first time that Hollywood has brought “The Flintstones” to the screen in a live-action movie.
Back in 1994, Universal Pictures released “The Flintstones,” which starred John Goodman as blowhard caveman Fred Flintstone, with Elizabeth Perkins as his long-suffering wife Wilma.
Rick Moranis and Rosie O’Donnell completed the cast as Barney and Betty Rubble, while movie icon Elizbeth Taylor played Fred’s mother-in-law.
At the time, reviews were not great. Famed film critic Gene Siskel summed up the prevailing sentiment when he wrote (via Rotten Tomatoes) that “much less thought has been put into this screenplay than into the production design and publicity campaign for this profoundly dull enterprise.”
While reviews were tepid at best, scathing at worst, the film nevertheless delivered at the box office, raking in $130 million at the box office — and even more during the then-lucrative home video market.
However, star Goodman found the shoot to be physically demanding. When discussions about a sequel took place, he famously told producer Steven Spielberg and director Brian Levant that he didn’t want to be stuck playing Fred Flintstone for the rest of his career. “Don’t make me do any more of these,” he reportedly pleaded.
Viva Rock Vegas
A sequel was eventually greenlit, and in 2000 moviegoers encountered “The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas.”
This, however, was a decidedly chintzier affair. The original stars were presumably too expensive, so new actors were cast.
Mark Addy played Fred, with Stephen Baldwin as Barney. Kristen Johnston played Wilma, and Jane Krakowski played Betty.
Sadly, “Viva Rock Vegas” was an out-and-out bomb that brought in less than $60 million worldwide at the box office — considerably less than the $83M it had cost to make.
