Get ready to pull out your “Hollywood is dead!” protest signs, for the cinematic apocalypse hangs before us - and it will always land on four paws. After movies based on games, Troll dolls and blogs, we’re now in the era of the “meme movie,” and I wish Keanu Reeve’s vacant stare was here to tell me what to do about it.
Deadline reports the Grumpy Cat meme will bring his crowd-sourced pessimism to theaters everywhere, thanks to Broken Road’s Todd Garner and Sean Robins, and Grumpy Cat’s manager and rep. If this already sounds like a stupid idea, take into account that Broken Road is responsible for such trainwrecks as Adam Sandler’s Jack and Jill and Kevin James’ The Zookeeper. This doesn't seem like a company bent on producing prestigious fare.
There’s no denying the popularity of the viral sourpuss, who won the 2013 Webby for Meme of the Year, as well as a slew of other “accolades.” She was MSNBC’s most influential cat of 2012 (what?) and was one of Mashable’s important memes of the same year. The cat, whose real name is Tardar Sauce, was one of the biggest hits of South by Southwest Interactive, has a powerhouse Facebook account, as has sold merchandise all over the country.
Still though, this is a picture of a cat that gets posted with vaguely amusing comments from Internet users around the world. How do you possibly turn it into a movie? You take all of the things that made Garfield successful (at last count there were 2) and you swap one negative kitty for another. Last year's Safety Not Guaranteed was also based on a meme, but one that at least had something of a built-in backstory.
“This started off as a picture of a cat, but rare is an image that evokes that much comedy,” Garner said in a statement about the film. “You read all of the memes and the comments, and one is funnier than the next. We think we can build a big family comedy around this character.”
Look forward to our grumpy comments about this project in the future.
