A look at the script for the upcoming JONNY QUEST!

El Mayimbe here...

So Warners is looking for another family friendly adventure franchise to replace Harry Potter. According to reader DR. STRANGEFIST who took a look at the 2nd draft of the script, the upcoming JONNY QUEST could be the answer. Dr. Strangefist (who seems to be on a hot streak lately) chimed in his thoughts below. From what I gather, he really liked the script. The 3rd draft has recently commenced so good news to all those Hanna Barbera fans – the project is active.

Jonny Quest revolved around a young boy who travels the world with his scientist father, adopted brother from India, Bandit the bulldog, and a government agent assigned to protect them as they go on their adventures investigating scientific mysteries.

The show, which is owned by Warner Bros. Animation, aired during primetime on ABC in 1964, lasting only one season. It was updated in the late '80s and '90s as "The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest" on the Cartoon Network. Property's also been spun off as a comic book from DC.

The Hollywood remake/adaptation train keeps on rolling, and the passenger this time around is a live action re-imagining of classic Hannah-Barbera cartoon Jonny Quest. Although the show originally ran for just one season, it obviously made an impression on plenty of people – it was resurrected twice, turned into TV movies, video games, and comics, and the characters have become pop culture icons. However, it’s been out of the spotlight for several years now, and at this point is probably not on the radar of many younger TV and movie viewers. It appears that Warner Bros. and writer Dan Mazeau have decided to change that and introduce the character to a new generation of fans, and a new version of him to old ones.

The script starts in classic sci-fi adventure fashion with two AIR FORCE RADAR TECHS in Greenland observing a mysterious object fall out of the sky and crash right on top of their remote facility. It’s some kind of sleek, futuristic flying vehicle, and it appears alien in nature. Enter dozens of military officials, guards, and scientists, all led by no-nonsense brass CORVIN. Nobody knows what this thing is, they can’t figure out what’s inside, they can’t even find a door. Corvin takes one look at the strange, glowing vessel and aide ROBERTS to contact the only man who might be able to help them, the brilliant, world-renowned scientist DR. BENTON QUEST

Cut to a military hangar in New Mexico where the highly accomplished Dr. Quest is giving a demonstration of his latest mind-boggling invention: a non-lethal ray gun that completely disintegrates weapons and vehicles but leaves organic unharmed. The audience is wowed, but after the demonstration someone turns the machine back on and goes wild with it in the hangar. Dr. Quest rushes to deactivate it and is shocked to find his 12-year-old son JONNY – our hero – using it to burn his initials into a nearby tank. It seems that Jonny is quite the troublemaker, and has driven off another in a long line of bodyguards ostensibly meant to protect him but really there to keep him out of mischief. Dr. Quest is furious, but has little time to react before Roberts arrives to brief him on the situation in Greenland and escort him back to his lab,. where the mysterious craft will be sent for study. Quest’s only request is that Corvin send him a new bodyguard, one that actually handle the demands of the job.

Cue RACE BANNON, quintessential badass secret agent; always cool, always in control, he’s seen and done it all and it’s left him with a sarcastic, wise-cracking demeanor. We find Race in the midst of being beaten and interrogated by a trio of eastern European thugs in a cargo container aboard a docked freighter, where an illegal arms deal is taking place. Race quickly and easily breaks free and turns the tables on his captors, then proceeds to try to stop the deal single-handedly. He almost succeeds, but the bad guys manage to get away in a mini-sub with half of their merchandise – a soviet warhead.

The thieves in the sub are led by the menacing and extremely dangerous KORCHECK, a man who appears to have an adversarial past with Race Bannon, and has the hideous battle scars to prove it. Korcheck quickly demonstrates that he is no childish cartoon villain by calmly yet brutally dispatching one of his underlings for failing to secure both warheads. Despite the setback, Korcheck informs his men that one warhead will be enough to forge ahead with their nefarious plans.

Meanwhile, Corvin is furious to learn that Bannon has been unsuccessful, and angrily informs him that he has a new assignment. He is quickly whisked away by helicopter to Dr. Quest’s advanced headquarters on a private island in the Florida Keys. Race assumes he is there to protect the good doctor, whose wife was killed during an attempt on his life three years before, but is more than a little shocked and annoyed to learn that the body he will be guarding is Jonny’s. The job may not be as easy or boring as Race thought, though, as Jonny has a penchant for trying to sneak out of the facility and has pilfered some of his dad’s high-tech gadgets to help him. Almost immediately Race is drawn into a high-speed boat chase with Jonny, who is trying to sneak out for a night of fun in nearby Miami. Although Jonny will be more of a handful than Race expected, Jonny has also underestimated his new “babysitter,” and the two begrudgingly begin to form a bond.

Back at the lab, Dr. Quest and two assistants are cutting open the strange vehicle from Greenland. The mystery of the ship deepens when they discover ancient Sanskrit characters etched into it, but they have little time to process the information before spider-like robots swarm out of the machine and attack them. Dr. Quest narrowly escapes, but the robots tap into the facility’s computer system and deactivate the security systems. The ship was a decoy, a Trojan horse, an elaborate trick to allow squads of armed attackers to raid the compound. Mazeau actually takes a moment here to step back from the story and interject a quick statement about the script – the world of Jonny Quest, though not graphically violent, is decidedly darker and more mature than kiddie fare like the Spy Kids films, and this scene aptly demonstrates his point; the bad guys actually kill people and the main characters are in real danger. In the ensuing chaos, the attackers capture Dr. Quest and steal the new ray gun from his lab. Race takes out several of them, and protects Jonny, but is unable to stop them from getting away.

Evidence suggests that the kidnappers have taken Dr. Quest to India, and the government dispatches a team to search for him. Jonny is supposed to stay behind, and Race is ordered to guard him, but Jonny sneaks aboard the plane and Race disobeys his orders and joins the mission, neither realizing that the other is along for the ride. In the meantime we find out that a former colleague named JEREMIAH HURD has kidnapped Benton, and he intends to force him to assist him with some unknown but undoubtedly evil project. Upon arrival in India, the government rescue team is ambushed and a reunited Race and Jonny are left to unravel the villains’ (Hurd and Korcheck are in league, naturally) plot and save Dr. Quest – but not on their own, as they meet an Indian boy named HADJI SINGH who can help them understand why the bad guys have stolen an ancient mystical Hindu artifact, and then team up with Race’s tough-as-nails old flame JADE.

What follows is an exciting, often funny adventure that hearkens back to the old-school Jonny Quest show, but also has a modern edge. Highlights include an inventive action scene involving a motorized rickshaw and jetpacks, an exciting hovercraft chase through twisting tunnels of a mine, and the reveal of a cavernous underground temple (shades of Temple of Doom) that clues our heroes into the nature of Hurd and Kolcheck’s plot. They have found an ancient artifact called the Brahmastra that supposedly unleashes the power of the gods – basically an ancient, mystical nuclear bomb, and Hurd needs Dr. Quest’s help (and his new ray gun) to “activate” it and harness it. And Korcheck wants to put it into the stolen warhead to use as the ultimate extortion tool. It all builds to a series of white-knuckle set pieces and an ending that sets up further adventures of the Quest team. If the finished film can deliver on the fun promised by the script, those further adventures will be completely welcome.
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