Crew:
Director--------------------Ron Howard
Musical Score---------------Danny Elfman
Cast:
Norville "Shaggy" Rogers----Brad Pitt
Scooby-Doo (voice)----------Dave Coulier
Velma Dinkley---------------Rosie O’Donnell
Daphne Blake----------------Julia Roberts
Fred "Freddy" Jones---------Tim Daly
Other Characters:
Christopher Walken
Gary Oldman
Alan Rickman
James Earl Jones
Sigourney Weaver
What’s the scoop?
We’ll discuss it a bit more in depth as we go through the steps below, but consider this--what are Scooby and the gang up to now? How have they adapted to life in the 90’s? Where the hell
is the Mystery Machine now? Well, we figure they either ran out of cases, got sick of driving all over the world in the same clothes, or something. They’ve gotten on with their lives. But now--the word goes out that something from their very first case has resurfaced--the Black Knight is back.
Directed by Ron Howard:
Okay, we had a couple of bizarre thoughts to begin with. Imagine this film directed by David Fincher. I don’t think David could lighten up enough to pull it off myself, not with the tone
we want. Now imagine this film directed by David Lynch. Okay, stop imagining it now--you’ll hurt yourself. Another thought was Penny Marshall, but we finally decided on Mr. Howard, who would be sure to bring us the spirit we’re looking for--a grown-up Scooby movie that still has that fanciful feel to it.
Music by Danny Elfman:
This man’s workload is immense! But hey, he would give the right
whacked-out spin to the music of the original series. Surely you could spare us a bit of time to work on this, Mr. Elfman? Go get his Darkened Theatre album and see if you don’t agree he would rock on this film.
Brad Pitt as Shaggy:
Okay. You might think we’re nuts on this one, but trust me. What’s happened to Shaggy since he’s left the gang? Well, Scoob’s with him of course. He got rich by inadvertantly inventing some revolutionary something that has something to do with surfboards. He is President and CEO of Shagcorp. So he’s loaded. But everyday he goes home, gets out of his suit and puts on his classic outfit to hang out with the Scoobmeister in their apartment. He gets the word somehow that one of his investments (I was thinking an amusement park, but fill in the blank) is threatened by none other than the Black Knight! Not only is the park in trouble, but so’s Shag cause he’s considered a suspect--the authorities think he might be sabotaging his own investment for insurance purposes! He realizes he needs backup, so he has to get the gang back together. The Mystery Machine is in the garage downstairs, he’s had it all this time--he grabs
Scooby and away they go.
Dave Coulier as Scooby-Doo’s voice:
Okay, Scoob’s body is pure CGI. And a la MIB, all the cast members accept the fact there’s a CGI dog with them without question. They’re used to it, and so is everyone else. Now, the original man behind the dog, so to speak, was Don Messick, and Don passed away in October of 97 of a stroke. We would have loved to have had Don on board for this opus, but it’s not to be. Instead, we call upon our backup Scoob, Dave Coulier, who got his start with an audition tape of him doing the Doo. He’ll be a good Scoob and I’m sure Don would be proud.
Rosie O’Donnell as Velma:
The first member of the old gang Scoob and Shag go to for help is Velma. She stuck with them long after Fred and Daphne parted ways with them, and she stayed in the business. She’s a private eye/bounty hunter, and she packs a piece. She’s got contacts (lenses, that is. -Ed) now, so don’t expect that losing glasses crap to work on her anymore!
Julia Roberts as Daphne:
Daphne grew out of that ditzy stage, and now she works for the DA’s office as a successful attorney on the fastpath to the top. She’s next on the list, and she takes some convincing from Velma, Shag and Scoob to take some of her saved up comp time and go on one last case.
Tim Daly as Fred:
Fred now owns the malt/ice cream shop. He doesn’t take much convincing to come along on the adventure because Daphne’s there, and he’s been kicking himself for years as to why he didn’t
make a move toward Daphne at some point during the time they were together. Hell, they always split off from the rest of the group, you always wondered what they were up to, right? Nope, Fred was always a perfect gentleman, but Daphne’s also wondering why he never tried anything...
Christopher Walken, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, James Earl Jones and Sigourney Weaver as The Suspects:
Who the hell are these guys supposed to be? Well, it’s like this. Somebody’s got to be the Black Knight, right? And somebody’s got to say "And I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t for those meddling kids and that dog!" Okay, you know and I know that it would be cool as hell to hear James say it, but that might not happen. In addition to Shaggy, you’ve got to have other suspects--and we wanted to have some the greatest villain character actors of our day involved so that once you look at the lineup (these five and then Shaggy) it’s almost crazy to try to figure out whodunit because they all look guilty as hell. Call them anything you want and give them jobs, you know, like Mr. VanBruen, the amusement park director. We think they’d have a ball playing parody versions of their own villainous alter egos. So which one did it? I dunno--you’ll just have to hire us to write the screenplay and find out. Heh.
"Okay, it's a long one...
"I've heard through the Internet backwater grapevine that there is a solid outline of a Mike Myers Scooby-Movie script. It goes like this:
"A la the Brady Bunch film series, Scooby and company anachronistically appear in the late 1990s and treat it like the late sixties and early seventies.
"They are drawn to New York City by a series of irresistable paranormal crimes: jewelry heists perpetrated by swamp monsters, ship hijackings staged on ghost boats, bank robberies by witch doctors, armored cars stolen by by phantom creatures.
"Early in the movie, the members of Mysteries, Inc. are rescued from a street gang by a local teenager, who becomes their new ally.
"During the film, look for really cool fan references. I understand that characters from the various spin-off series (The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, etc.) will appear in a number of capacities, most notably the beloved Scrappy-Doo. "The interepid sleuths soon discover that the crimes are being pulled off by a consortium of criminals that they've captured in the past, led by Mike Myers. (I've heard rumblings of Myers playing Fred as well, but I dunno.) Classic monsters will definitely return: the ice cream phantoms, the witch doctor, the wax monster...
"Some cool ideas I've heard:
- similar in its corny anarchronism jokes to the Brady Bunch Movies, there will be similar character development in this movie: Fred and Daphne are forced to reveal their true feelings (what true feelings?), and Shaggy tries to diet. - the Mystery Machine sinks in New York Harbor, so they buy a minivan. - they wear different clothing for part of the movie.
"Finally, a tagline (though it's ripped off from the current animated movie that was just released from the video.)
'Three decades, two hundred mysteries. Consider it practice.'
"(And a few others I thought might be cool:)
'Just Doo It.'
'Aging is for geeks.'
'And you thought *your* life was interesting.'
"Okay... Now we see if this is for real. If it is, I'm buying my ticket in advance!"
Me? Spread libel? Surely not! All pictures are from me, but this edited version was derived from those great folks at 'Scoop', and can be found in it's unedited for here. Oh, and this person reckons Dustin Diamond will be Shaggy, and with good reason, too. Check out what he has to say.