There are plenty of crazy Hollywood ideas that never live to see the light of day. Projects that, for one reason or another, the studio decides not to pursue any further. This was the plight of a planned adaptation of the newspaper comic The Far Side.
The work of artist Gary Larson, The Far Side ran from 1979 to 1995 and unlike most other classic comics, it's still popular in the internet age. Like fellow cultural darling Calvin and Hobbes, its heavy use of surreal humor just "clicks" with later generations. The best example of this is the infamous "Cow Tools" comic from 1982. People found it so confusing that Larson later issued a press release explaining the joke.
Apparently, at some point during the '80s, a couple of Hollywood bigwigs tried to put together a Far Side feature. Alan Rudolph would write and direct the film, which would feature actors Dirk Blocker and John Larroquette. Blocker, known for his role as Detective Michael Hitchcock on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, apparently held on to some behind-the-scenes photos. How do we know this? Because he tweeted them out earlier last month.
Due to its "gag-a-day" style, The Far Side might not have seemed like the best fit for a feature film. Most anything without a core narrative just won't translate well to the medium. Films like Dennis the Menace and Marmaduke would go on to prove this in spades. But back to those photos, because they're so strange that they almost ... work? At least that's what Twitter users seem to think. At the very least, they do a good job of capturing the spirit of the comic. But even if you have the delightfully haunting visuals down pat, a good story is still key. And it looks like, on that front, Rudolph came up empty, because the film never materialized.
But could a film adaptation of The Far Side work nowadays? Despite Larson having a small fandom, it wouldn't exactly be a project with the scope of, say, a Marvel movie. But the nostalgia is there. Despite critics panning the film, Dennis the Menace made more than three times its budget at the box office, and later comic strip adaptations such as Garfield, Over The Hedge, and The Peanuts Movie have all been equally successful. There's a problem with that logic, however, which is that all of those films had a young audience.
If it became a film, The Far Side would play to a decidedly older crowd. The success of the PG-13 rated Addams Family adaptation from 1991 might be a closer parallel. But The Addams Family's imprint on pop culture had already extended to television and video games before the film. There's only one Far Side adaptation, an animated short film from 1994 directed by Larson himself. So a big-budget film based on the comic might be a good idea in theory, but perhaps not in practice. However, there's one glimmer of hope for Far Side fans; Larson has begun drawing the comic again after 25 years. And there's no better time than the present to get into his work.
Source: The A.V. Club