Monkeybone

Monkeybone (2001)

Get boned!

After a car crash sends repressed cartoonist Stu into a coma, he and the mischievous Monkeybone, his hilarious alter-ego, wake up in a wacked-out waystation for lost souls. When Monkeybone takes over Stu's body and escapes to wreak havoc on the real world, Stu has to find a way to stop him before his sister pulls the plug on reality forever!

Date of release
2001-02-23
TMDB
5.3 / 10 (391)
Runtime
1h 33m
Genres
Adventure, Fantasy, Animation, Comedy, Science Fiction
Director
Henry Selick

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Dark Town
  • Filmed in: Los Angeles

Monkeybone is a 2001 American dark fantasy comedy film directed by Henry Selick, written by Sam Hamm, produced by Michael Barnathan and Mark Radcliffe and executive produced by Chris Columbus, Selick and Hamm. Combining live action with mostly stop-motion animation and loosely based on Kaja Blackley's graphic novel Dark Town, the film stars Brendan Fraser, Bridget Fonda, Chris Kattan, Giancarlo Esposito, Rose McGowan, Whoopi Goldberg and John Turturro as the voice of the titular character.

Production

The comic book Dark Town, on which Monkeybone is based, was written by Kaja Blackley, illustrated by Vanessa Chong, and published by Mad Monkey Press. The journey from comic to film was initiated by a fan of the comic and member of the San Francisco animation community (Tom "Bags" Sacchi/ChasingDragons Productions NYC) who, without Blackley's knowledge, passed a copy of Dark Town on to one of Selick's producers, Denise Rotina.

Initially, the role of Stu Miley was to be played by Ben Stiller. Stiller dropped out to be in Mystery Men and was replaced by Fraser.

Much of the film's art bears a strong resemblance to that of Mark Ryden—for example, the bust of Abraham Lincoln as "The Great Emancipator". Stu's pre-therapy painting is similar to Ryden's The Birth, and according to the credits, was painted by him for the film. The animation style and the themes of the opening sequence in which Stu first encounters Monkeybone are similar to the work of Swedish cartoonist Magnus Carlsson.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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