Yeah, but Disney had already done a Johnny Appleseed adaptation at this point with the Johnny Appleseed segment in Melody Time.
Pop Culture Timelines Go-To Thread
- Thread starter vultan
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Didn't know that but still there's plenty of other folk stories to adapt.
For those people interested, we have a new ATL called "Masks Begat Masks", where superheroes and supervillains are real, complete with costumes, but the laws of physics remain in place, so no super powers:
Masks Beget Masks: A TL for Vigilantes
POD: August 8, 1925,.... The Ku Klux Klan marched with impunity across Pennsylvania Avenue, and in front of the White House. It would be ironic to note that this event, would actually serve as the inspiration for the rise of vigilantes and superheroes in the United States and across the globe...
www.alternatehistory.com
Now, here's one I came up with recently that's set in more recent times.
Imagine if, after Jeffrey Katzenberg stepped down as the CEO of Dreamworks in 2016, they tried again at a hand-drawn film after two decades. (Similar to when Disney tried again at hand-drawn animation after Michael Eisner stepped down.) I have an idea for what this film's crew would consist of, and the previous films it would take influence from.
The film would be directed by Simon Wells and Gary Trousdale. The animation staff would consist of Duncan Marjoribanks, Kristof Serrand, Nicolas Marlet, William Salazar, Lorna Cook...pretty much any Dreamworks animator who previously worked at Disney or Amblimation. The soundtrack would be provided by Hans Zimmer, with songs written by Stephen Schwartz.
The film wouldn't completely follow the modern Dreamworks formula, but would take influence from the Disney Renaissance, Don Bluth, and maybe even a bit of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It would be released in either 2019 or 2020.
I still haven't completely figured out what this film would be about, but I imagine it starring talking animal characters. If anyone has any suggestions for this ATL modern 2D Dreamworks film, that would be great.
Imagine if, after Jeffrey Katzenberg stepped down as the CEO of Dreamworks in 2016, they tried again at a hand-drawn film after two decades. (Similar to when Disney tried again at hand-drawn animation after Michael Eisner stepped down.) I have an idea for what this film's crew would consist of, and the previous films it would take influence from.
The film would be directed by Simon Wells and Gary Trousdale. The animation staff would consist of Duncan Marjoribanks, Kristof Serrand, Nicolas Marlet, William Salazar, Lorna Cook...pretty much any Dreamworks animator who previously worked at Disney or Amblimation. The soundtrack would be provided by Hans Zimmer, with songs written by Stephen Schwartz.
The film wouldn't completely follow the modern Dreamworks formula, but would take influence from the Disney Renaissance, Don Bluth, and maybe even a bit of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It would be released in either 2019 or 2020.
I still haven't completely figured out what this film would be about, but I imagine it starring talking animal characters. If anyone has any suggestions for this ATL modern 2D Dreamworks film, that would be great.
So I've been thinking about doing a timeline (which probably won't last long if it even gets made) regarding an alternate 80s and beyond which included various pop culture related things. One of which involves Turner keeping MGM/UA perpetually instead of selling back some of its assets back to Tracinda and keeping the rest. So I have to ask how and if such a proposal is possible and how it affects Turner Broadcasting and the pop culture scene as a whole, for the only thing I'm absolutely sure of is that TBS probably wouldn't merge with Time-Warner.
Ted Turner was only in it for the film libraries he could then play on TBS. So it’s implausible he’d want to keep the whole shebang, he doesn’t want to own a movie studio. Plus he was overleveraged to buy it IIRC, from the start he planned to sell pieces.
Not impossible, but Turner would need a compelling reason.
Not impossible, but Turner would need a compelling reason.
Maybe he sees the potential of owning a movie studio and wants to turn MGM into a household name again? Honestly my guess for why he'd want to keep the whole thing is as good as yours.
That’s fair lol. Taking a quick look through my library Stephen Prince’s A New Pot of Gold: Hollywood Under the Electric Rainbow, 1980-1989 is probably most relevant if you need a source book.
I've been entertaining the notion of an alternate timeline where the 1970's ends with a "Punk Demolition Night" instead of the OTL's Disco Demolition Night, and it is punk rock (and the related punk subculture) that suffer a massive backlash at the start of the 1980's instead of disco.
Essentially, it'd be a timeline where disco is celebrated from the get-go and punk culture is ultimately derided and rendered culturally irrelevant instead of being seen as the proto-template for the indie hipster ideal it would eventually become in the 21st Century, while Heavy Metal successfully fulfills the counterculture niche that punk did in OTL instead.
In this alternate timeline, the Goth subculture emerges from the hard rock and heavy metal scene instead of the English punk scene (since punk is dead, and unlike the death of disco, this is felt on both sides of the Atlantic) and as a result, this alternate take on Goth has a much different ethos and mentality, one that is far less pretentious and prone to purity spirals, but still very much an individualist counterculture.
The point of divergence is in 1977, with Elvis Presley not dying that year and releasing a very successful trilogy of disco albums in 1978, 1979, and 1981. In this alternate timeline, Elvis retires from music for good in 1992, and dies peacefully in his sleep in 2000.
John Lennon also does not die in 1980, although Mark David Chapman still tries to kill him, but misses his shot and hits Yoko Ono instead. Yoko survives and makes a long and painful yet full recovery, but Lennon is fundamentally changed.
No longer the pacifistic hippie icon of the 60's and 70's, John Lennon rebrands himself and cultivates a new image and even adapts a stage name. Lennon immerses himself in the heavy metal subculture, particularly the first wave of black metal in the 1980's, helping promote bands such as Venom, Bathory, Celtic Frost, Mercyful Fate, Siouxsie and the Banshees (in this timeline, they are a first-wave black metal band) and Sarcofago, and following some legal hassles in New York and a painful divorce, relocates to Norway around 1987 or so.
This is where he meets a new protege, a young man by the name of Oystein Aarseth, who would be remembered by the name Euronymous.
The second wave of black metal still kicks off as it did in OTL, but it has a much wider reach and appeal thanks to Lennon's involvement, although the "Black Circle" shenanigans of church arsons and knife attacks still occur and Varg Vikernes still kills Euronymous, although this time, he manages to hire a good lawyer who is able to get the charges reduced from premeditated murder to voluntary manslaughter via a plea bargain, and Vikernes is released in 2001 instead of 2009, although Burzum still shifts from black metal to dark ambient as it did in OTL, although Varg does not become the radical Neo-Nazi he is in OTL.
Instead, he quietly retires after his release from prison and still becomes a farmer in rural France, but doesn't have much of an online footprint like he does in OTL, mainly due to not getting involved in far-right politics.
I've also been thinking of including alternate versions of Kurt Cobain and Tupac Shakur, although I'm debating on what all they do differently in this timeline compared to OTL.
Essentially, it'd be a timeline where disco is celebrated from the get-go and punk culture is ultimately derided and rendered culturally irrelevant instead of being seen as the proto-template for the indie hipster ideal it would eventually become in the 21st Century, while Heavy Metal successfully fulfills the counterculture niche that punk did in OTL instead.
In this alternate timeline, the Goth subculture emerges from the hard rock and heavy metal scene instead of the English punk scene (since punk is dead, and unlike the death of disco, this is felt on both sides of the Atlantic) and as a result, this alternate take on Goth has a much different ethos and mentality, one that is far less pretentious and prone to purity spirals, but still very much an individualist counterculture.
The point of divergence is in 1977, with Elvis Presley not dying that year and releasing a very successful trilogy of disco albums in 1978, 1979, and 1981. In this alternate timeline, Elvis retires from music for good in 1992, and dies peacefully in his sleep in 2000.
John Lennon also does not die in 1980, although Mark David Chapman still tries to kill him, but misses his shot and hits Yoko Ono instead. Yoko survives and makes a long and painful yet full recovery, but Lennon is fundamentally changed.
No longer the pacifistic hippie icon of the 60's and 70's, John Lennon rebrands himself and cultivates a new image and even adapts a stage name. Lennon immerses himself in the heavy metal subculture, particularly the first wave of black metal in the 1980's, helping promote bands such as Venom, Bathory, Celtic Frost, Mercyful Fate, Siouxsie and the Banshees (in this timeline, they are a first-wave black metal band) and Sarcofago, and following some legal hassles in New York and a painful divorce, relocates to Norway around 1987 or so.
This is where he meets a new protege, a young man by the name of Oystein Aarseth, who would be remembered by the name Euronymous.
The second wave of black metal still kicks off as it did in OTL, but it has a much wider reach and appeal thanks to Lennon's involvement, although the "Black Circle" shenanigans of church arsons and knife attacks still occur and Varg Vikernes still kills Euronymous, although this time, he manages to hire a good lawyer who is able to get the charges reduced from premeditated murder to voluntary manslaughter via a plea bargain, and Vikernes is released in 2001 instead of 2009, although Burzum still shifts from black metal to dark ambient as it did in OTL, although Varg does not become the radical Neo-Nazi he is in OTL.
Instead, he quietly retires after his release from prison and still becomes a farmer in rural France, but doesn't have much of an online footprint like he does in OTL, mainly due to not getting involved in far-right politics.
I've also been thinking of including alternate versions of Kurt Cobain and Tupac Shakur, although I'm debating on what all they do differently in this timeline compared to OTL.
Elvis surviving past 1977 does handle that issue somewhat, and there is a reason why I chose Elvis specifically for this timeline.
Elvis did help bridge the race barrier with Rock & Roll in the 1950's and made it more broadly appealing to white Americans, and then he does it a second time with Disco. The homophobia issue is also partly resolved by the very heterosexual Elvis's involvement in the subculture.
Punk gets a backlash due to being even more aggressive and counter-cultural than in OTL, with the punk subculture becoming even more politicized than in OTL, complete with waves of political violence and a series of high-profile scandals in 1979 involving punk gangs in NYC, London, and Seattle buying illegal weapons from Soviet agents, at a time when the detente of the Nixon era is rapidly collapsing.
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IMO, I think the punks InYourTL are more likely to be linked with neo-Nazi/far right groups than the Soviets. But otherwise I really enjoyed all your ideas.
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Eh, I wanted to really play up the left-wing anarchism inherent in punk culture, and also there's the fact that the Soviets would have enough pull to set off the "oh shit" meter in the general public's minds at the time in a way that Neo-Nazis would not have the capacity to, as the Cold War was still going on, and 1979-1980 was the point where the detente policies set up by Nixon and upheld by Ford and Carter had started to rapidly fall apart, especially with the Soviet aggression in Afghanistan around that time.
The global scale of the Cold War could also explain why KGB agents would be selling weapons to punk gangs in both the United States and in Europe, and that kind of scandal also explains why the death of punk in this timeline happens on both sides of the Atlantic, while the death of disco in OTL was largely an American phenomenon partially rooted in racism and homophobia and partly rooted in the RIAA pushing the sale of full-length albums over the sale of singles (Disco was very much a singles-driven genre) while in Europe, disco survived well into the 1980's and began to take on more electronic elements (and was labeled as "Hi-NRG" in North America to avoid stigma)
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Possible and that Is a massive Butterfly not only cinema but tv, even here too in latam, OTL MGM was the main force for LAPTV (latin america pay TV providers) and HBO competitor in moviecity multiplex suite ( now named Fox premium) and before Turner have massive presence with Turner channels. This might Butterfly away Warner bros buyout too
Yeah but as Electric Monk stated, this is pretty difficult to do given Turner's disinterest to buy and keep the studio as well as the financial troubles that accompanied him when acquiring it. I tried to look for that book he recommended to me but I couldn't find it in my school library nor my city library's website.
Here's another thought,
What if he and Jane Fonda were to divorce earlier while he still retained most of this property, would Fonda get part of it or would it be sold of to pay Turner's legal fees?
I suppose my idea would be counter to this one. However, one change I could see is Toho getting to remake King Kong vs. Godzilla in the nineties if Turner can't say boo concerning the rights to Kong. Which I call a win of course
Inspired by the approaching finale of Supernatural, this idea has been rattling around inside my head:
I was halfway through the third episode of the WB’s Tarzan when my wife walked in and asked for a recap. Having just read Edgar Rice Burroughs’ pulp classic Tarzan of the Apes, I was eager to explain all the ingenious ways this new series handles the source material—how cool it was that the cabin his dead father built has become a Park Avenue apartment wing—but I had already lost her attention. “God, he’s hot,” she said, looking at Tarzan’s star, former Calvin Klein underwear model Travis Fimmel. “You should see if he’s in Tiger Beat yet. There’s a lot of 11-year-old girls who are going to love this show.”
"Brad Turrell, the network's corporate spokesman, brandished charts that tried to play down the declines. The charts indicated that the wild swings among young viewers this fall -- including sizable drop-offs in overall viewing among WB's core audience of younger women, which got much less attention than the even bigger slide among younger men -- called into question Nielsen's measurements."
The WB's core demographic -- female, ages 12 to 24 — failed to deliver the network sufficient profits to stay afloat in this brave new world of reality television. So, it sought to attract a broader demographic. Women and men. People between the ages of 24 and 36 — you know, the eldery! This effort would ultimately fail, leading to massive layoffs in late 2005 and a merger with a fellow struggling network, UPN, to form The CW in 2006.
In an omen for modern Hollywood's remake fever, executives at The WB concluded that known IPs were the secret to success. The 2001 pilot for Superman prequel series Smallville attracted 8.4 million viewers, a record for The WB. A sitcom vehicle for country music singer Reba McEntire would be the network's lone successful comedy series and a ratings smash hit, often landing The WB ahead of UPN and even Fox in the rankings for its time slot. The WB's other successes in this period were relative ones. Original content like Gilmore Girls attracted critical acclaim but not big ratings. So it seemed obvious to conclude that audiences craved the familiar. Which probably explains why The WB greenlit a modernized Tarzan.
Except, as Hollywood has also demonstrated time and again lately, just because audiences are familiar with an IP doesn't mean they necessarily want to see more of it. Tarzan flopped hard, cancelled after eight episodes. Its showrunner, Eric Kripke, wasn't blamed for the failure given the general decline in fortunes affecting The WB's lineup. He was even asked to pitch another show.
Kripke pitched two different shows to network executives, and both ideas could be summarized as "The X-Files meets Route 66." The first pitch was about a female photojournalist criss-crossing the country, investigating demons infiltrating society. The WB passed. Too played out, they said. The second pitch was about two brothers driving the backroads of Middle America, hunting the things that go bump in the dark. The WB was intrigued, but ultimately passed on that pitch as well.
In fact, the suits at The WB weren't actually interested in any of Kripke's pitches. They already had a new project in mind for him, and Kripke's fixation on monsters only cemented their belief that he was the right man for the job of updating another old IP for modern audiences. Before a desperate Kripke could improvise a third pitch, the Senior Vice President of Drama Development, Susan Rovner, leaned forward. "We love the idea of you doing a horror show for us, but want something with firmer footing. Have you ever heard of an old PBS series called Doctor Who?"
People often think that the BBC gave up on Doctor Who. That absolutely isn't true. I adore the Doctor, and there are others here who feel the same. He's scary and fantastic and more than a little funny. We tried to get him back on the screen with different proposals, but there were profound issues of money and ego at play. A negative energy became associated with the show. Doctor Who had been shopped around America for years and years, and all the stops and starts were enough to frankly drive people mad. It wasn't a jolly day when word came down that a deal had been inked. We were blasé. We felt it would fall apart yet again.
The cult classic returns! After Ian and Babs (Jensen Ackles [2], Alona Tal [3] ) check in on a troubled friend, they are transported back to 1963 and become embroiled in the JFK assassination. Susan: Leighton Meester [4]. The Doctor: John Slattery [5].
[1] The POD. I'm still ironing out the details, but the gist is that the Fox TV Movie dies in Development Hell. Without the TV Movie flopping in the United States, BBC Worldwide is slower to give back Doctor Who to the BBC's television people. Without the TV Movie doing well in Britain, the BBC underestimates popular support for a Doctor Who revival.
[2] [3] [4] The WB had (and its successor The CW has) a tendency to rotate actors between various projects. Jensen Ackles had a recurring supporting role on Smallville before he jumped ship to Supernatural in OTL. Alona Tal had a recurring supporting role on Veronica Mars, and was the runner up for the role of Veronica Mars. Leighton Meester is only minor actor at this point OTL and ITTL, as she hasn't enjoyed her OTL breakout role as Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl. Meester was, however, one of the main characters on Tarzan, so it isn't a stretch that Kripke would think of her for the role.
[5] While he later rose to fame with his role as Roger Sterling in Mad Men, actor John Slattery was still a relatively obscure actor at this point OTL. He had just starred in 21 episodes of The WB's Kennedy nostalgia piece Jack & Bobby, a drama about two young brothers, one of whom eventually grows up to become president. Circa the early 2000s, Slattery was one of the few older white men in The WB's youth-focused roster. It seems natural he'd get asked to audition, especially since The WB wasn't financially healthy enough (or that prestigious) to attract known talent at this point in its lifespan. That, and the Doctor Who reboot isn't being helmed by an award-winner like Russell T Davies. Eric Kripke is a nobody at a dying, wannabe minor network. The project isn't one that screams surefire success.
[6] As of 2020, Eric Kripke's three original TV series in OTL — Supernatural, Revolution, and Timeless — all feature a heavy emphasis on family drama and parent-child relationships. I imagine that his ITTL version of Doctor Who would be in that mold. Luckily, the Doctor has an OTL relative in the form of Susan Foreman. Also, in OTL, Kripke has commented that The X-Files is a cautionary tale for writers about how burdensome a show's mythology can become over time. Combine those two facts and I think he'd be inclined to just take Doctor Who back to square one, if modernized in many ways.
I was halfway through the third episode of the WB’s Tarzan when my wife walked in and asked for a recap. Having just read Edgar Rice Burroughs’ pulp classic Tarzan of the Apes, I was eager to explain all the ingenious ways this new series handles the source material—how cool it was that the cabin his dead father built has become a Park Avenue apartment wing—but I had already lost her attention. “God, he’s hot,” she said, looking at Tarzan’s star, former Calvin Klein underwear model Travis Fimmel. “You should see if he’s in Tiger Beat yet. There’s a lot of 11-year-old girls who are going to love this show.”
- Excerpt from "Lord of the WB," Slate (October 27th, 2003) (OTL)
"Brad Turrell, the network's corporate spokesman, brandished charts that tried to play down the declines. The charts indicated that the wild swings among young viewers this fall -- including sizable drop-offs in overall viewing among WB's core audience of younger women, which got much less attention than the even bigger slide among younger men -- called into question Nielsen's measurements."
- Excerpt from the New York Times, "WB Ratings Slide" (January 14, 2004) (OTL)
The WB's core demographic -- female, ages 12 to 24 — failed to deliver the network sufficient profits to stay afloat in this brave new world of reality television. So, it sought to attract a broader demographic. Women and men. People between the ages of 24 and 36 — you know, the eldery! This effort would ultimately fail, leading to massive layoffs in late 2005 and a merger with a fellow struggling network, UPN, to form The CW in 2006.
In an omen for modern Hollywood's remake fever, executives at The WB concluded that known IPs were the secret to success. The 2001 pilot for Superman prequel series Smallville attracted 8.4 million viewers, a record for The WB. A sitcom vehicle for country music singer Reba McEntire would be the network's lone successful comedy series and a ratings smash hit, often landing The WB ahead of UPN and even Fox in the rankings for its time slot. The WB's other successes in this period were relative ones. Original content like Gilmore Girls attracted critical acclaim but not big ratings. So it seemed obvious to conclude that audiences craved the familiar. Which probably explains why The WB greenlit a modernized Tarzan.
Except, as Hollywood has also demonstrated time and again lately, just because audiences are familiar with an IP doesn't mean they necessarily want to see more of it. Tarzan flopped hard, cancelled after eight episodes. Its showrunner, Eric Kripke, wasn't blamed for the failure given the general decline in fortunes affecting The WB's lineup. He was even asked to pitch another show.
Kripke pitched two different shows to network executives, and both ideas could be summarized as "The X-Files meets Route 66." The first pitch was about a female photojournalist criss-crossing the country, investigating demons infiltrating society. The WB passed. Too played out, they said. The second pitch was about two brothers driving the backroads of Middle America, hunting the things that go bump in the dark. The WB was intrigued, but ultimately passed on that pitch as well.
In fact, the suits at The WB weren't actually interested in any of Kripke's pitches. They already had a new project in mind for him, and Kripke's fixation on monsters only cemented their belief that he was the right man for the job of updating another old IP for modern audiences. Before a desperate Kripke could improvise a third pitch, the Senior Vice President of Drama Development, Susan Rovner, leaned forward. "We love the idea of you doing a horror show for us, but want something with firmer footing. Have you ever heard of an old PBS series called Doctor Who?"
- Extract from the SF Debris special "Rebooted!" 2014
People often think that the BBC gave up on Doctor Who. That absolutely isn't true. I adore the Doctor, and there are others here who feel the same. He's scary and fantastic and more than a little funny. We tried to get him back on the screen with different proposals, but there were profound issues of money and ego at play. A negative energy became associated with the show. Doctor Who had been shopped around America for years and years, and all the stops and starts were enough to frankly drive people mad. It wasn't a jolly day when word came down that a deal had been inked. We were blasé. We felt it would fall apart yet again.
- Excerpt from an interview with Russell T Davies, 2007 [1]
The cult classic returns! After Ian and Babs (Jensen Ackles [2], Alona Tal [3] ) check in on a troubled friend, they are transported back to 1963 and become embroiled in the JFK assassination. Susan: Leighton Meester [4]. The Doctor: John Slattery [5].
- TV Guide description for Doctor Who: 1x01 "Pilot" (September 13th, 2005) [6]
[1] The POD. I'm still ironing out the details, but the gist is that the Fox TV Movie dies in Development Hell. Without the TV Movie flopping in the United States, BBC Worldwide is slower to give back Doctor Who to the BBC's television people. Without the TV Movie doing well in Britain, the BBC underestimates popular support for a Doctor Who revival.
[2] [3] [4] The WB had (and its successor The CW has) a tendency to rotate actors between various projects. Jensen Ackles had a recurring supporting role on Smallville before he jumped ship to Supernatural in OTL. Alona Tal had a recurring supporting role on Veronica Mars, and was the runner up for the role of Veronica Mars. Leighton Meester is only minor actor at this point OTL and ITTL, as she hasn't enjoyed her OTL breakout role as Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl. Meester was, however, one of the main characters on Tarzan, so it isn't a stretch that Kripke would think of her for the role.
[5] While he later rose to fame with his role as Roger Sterling in Mad Men, actor John Slattery was still a relatively obscure actor at this point OTL. He had just starred in 21 episodes of The WB's Kennedy nostalgia piece Jack & Bobby, a drama about two young brothers, one of whom eventually grows up to become president. Circa the early 2000s, Slattery was one of the few older white men in The WB's youth-focused roster. It seems natural he'd get asked to audition, especially since The WB wasn't financially healthy enough (or that prestigious) to attract known talent at this point in its lifespan. That, and the Doctor Who reboot isn't being helmed by an award-winner like Russell T Davies. Eric Kripke is a nobody at a dying, wannabe minor network. The project isn't one that screams surefire success.
[6] As of 2020, Eric Kripke's three original TV series in OTL — Supernatural, Revolution, and Timeless — all feature a heavy emphasis on family drama and parent-child relationships. I imagine that his ITTL version of Doctor Who would be in that mold. Luckily, the Doctor has an OTL relative in the form of Susan Foreman. Also, in OTL, Kripke has commented that The X-Files is a cautionary tale for writers about how burdensome a show's mythology can become over time. Combine those two facts and I think he'd be inclined to just take Doctor Who back to square one, if modernized in many ways.
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@Lavanya Six So a total Reboot of Doctor Who then, not even an attempt to tie it back into the old stuff?
When I read Slattery I thought you mean Tony...
I guess Kripke would at least bring some of the Monsters/Horror back to the show- possibly not reinvent the Daleks?
When I read Slattery I thought you mean Tony...
I guess Kripke would at least bring some of the Monsters/Horror back to the show- possibly not reinvent the Daleks?