Jim Hill: From the Archives
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Back in 1980, Spielberg and George Lucas had been looking for a home for their dream project: a big budget remake of the old Saturday matinee serials. It featured exotic locations, elaborate stunts as well as an unlikely sounding hero: Indiana Jones.

Based on Lucas and Spielberg's box office reputation, every studio in town (including Disney) wanted a shot at producing Raiders of the Lost Ark. But none of them dared to take on the project, after they learned about the film's projected budget as well as the outrageous financial terms Spielberg and Lucas were asking. Only Eisner - then head of production at Paramount Pictures - dared to make the deal.

That gamble had paid off handsomely - both in its profits for Paramount as well as Eisner's friendship with Spielberg. So now - six years later - Eisner had his own dream project that needed help. So he called Steven at his Amblin production offices over on the Universal backlot, asking him to come on down to Burbank for a little confab.

Spielberg - of course - remembered the Roger Rabbit script and shared Eisner's enthusiasm for the proposed film. But Steve also knew that this ambitious mix of animation and live action would be an expensive and time consuming project. It was almost too much film for one studio to make.

That's when Eisner proposed that Disney and Amblin produced Who Framed Roger Rabbit together. Disney would lend its animation expertise to the project. Steven would bring in his buddy, George Lucas and his wizards at ILM to handle the film's special effects. More importantly, Spielberg could use his considerable clout to persuade the other Hollywood studios to allow the Mouse to use their classic cartoon characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Steven was willing to take Uncle Mikey on his offer -- with one condition: Disney and Amblin had to share the copyright on any characters that were created for the film. That meant that the two companies would split everything right down the middle. 50 / 50. That included merchandising revenues, sequel and spin-off rights, any theme park projects, basically the whole ball of wax.

Eisner was so desperate to get his event film made that he quickly agreed to Spielberg's terms. That may have been the last time Michael and Steven agreed on anything relating to Roger Rabbit.

The actual production of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is a classic Hollywood horror story.

A troubled film right from the start, its budget started at $30 million, then quickly escalated to $50.6 million.

Work on the movie fell so far behind schedule that - in February 1988 - it looked Roger Rabbit might miss its June 24th opening date. Since Disney had already signed multi-million dollar promotional deals with McDonalds and Coca Cola that keyed on Roger Rabbit opening on that day, missing the film's opening date was not an option. So Uncle Mikey forced then-Disney studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg to personally take charge of the project. Jeffrey did everything he could think of - kicked, cried, screamed, cajoled - to get the Roger Rabbit team into meet their production deadline.

The one aspect of the project that did not go over-budget was the licensing deals Spielberg worked out for use of the non-Disney classic cartoon characters to be featured in the film. True to his word, Spielberg persuaded the other Hollywood studios to lease their toons to the Mouse for a ridiculously low fee: $5,000 per character.

Of course, there were a few conditions. Warners insisted that - if Bugs Bunny were to appear in the film - he could only appear in scenes where he performed directly opposite Mickey Mouse. And -- when the characters spoke - Bugs had to have the same exact number of words of dialogue that Mickey did.

(Warners' insistence on a similar arrangement for Donald and Daffy Duck actually resulted in one of the best scenes from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Since Donald and Daffy had to appear together, director Robert Zemeckis threw them on stage as a team at the Ink and Paint club. Their loony dueling pianos rendition of the Hungarian Rhapsody was one of the real highlights of the first film.)

With Katzenberg cracking the whip, Who Framed Roger Rabbit did actually make it into theaters on June 24th. The film immediately became a box office sensation -- grossing over $154 million in its initial domestic release alone. Overseas, Roger Rabbit was even more popular -- taking in $174 million at the international box office.

Disney and Spielberg had created a hugely popular movie. Consumers snatched up mounds of Roger Rabbit merchandise, then clamored for more. The film won four Academy Awards. Fans screamed for a sequel.

But now - twelve years later - Roger languishes in limbo.