Genndy Tartakovsky is developing a Popeye animated feature…again. This latest news is according to a report in Animation Magazine that cites “close sources” to the project.
Per the report, Tartakovsky is working directly with Popeye owners King Features Syndicate. The first time that Tartakovsky developed the project, he was making it under the auspices of Sony Pictures Animation (SPA). That first attempt resulted in a proof of concept trailer (below), but then SPA went through management changes and the new group decided in 2015 to stop development on the film.
This time around, Tartakovsky is rebooting the idea with King Features (a unit of Hearst Entertainment and Syndication), which means that they would still have to partner with a third-party film studio or — more likely nowadays — a streaming service.