Bazooka Origins: Joe to Tell Haunting Back Story of One-Eyed Gum Mascot

Michael Eisner hasn't lost a step since leaving Disney four years ago. Unless, that is, you count his acquisition of the floundering Topps Card Co. in 2007, or his odd multimedia efforts to revive the brand. (An office comedy about baseball cards! Genius!) But no matter how strange the mogul's detour looks on paper, you can't deny his singular vision -- especially today, now that we know he's planning a movie based on bubble gum.

It's called Bazooka Joe, a script commissioned by Eisner's Tornante shingle to help pump interest in the Topps-owned brand. It remains to be determined if Mark Hammer's screenplay will somehow make Bazooka any less stale or preserve its flavor past its current three-minute threshold, but that hardly compromises the fascinating nature of the project. On one hand, as THR notes, the comic adventures of Bazooka Joe and his ragtag gang have plenty of potential family appeal (unless you're a dentist).

On the other, that same gang is like the confectionery Watchmen. Joe bumps around with his eyepatch, cracking bad jokes, and behaving as perhaps the most developmentally disabled hero in comics history. Moreover, he's abetted by a whole gang: Mort (half-man/half-sweater, though The Onion has its own ideas about him), Hungry Herman, Toughie, and his dog Walkie Talkie. He's got a slammin' girlfriend, too, and a sombrero-rocking pal, Pesty, who may or may not be Joe's brother. Their misadventures could be attributed to being high, brain-damaged, or some kind of post-ironic ennui.

Which is all sort of a windy way of saying: Family movie, my ass. If Michael Eisner wants to sell some gum, let's set up a origin story worth buying. Let's see the knife fight during which Joe lost his eye, or the accidental killing of his father that estranged Pesty. Let's see some apocalyptic sex between Joe and Jane, with a traditional Bazooka Comics fortune tacked on to the end of the movie (e.g. "FIND YOURSELF: PLAY HIDE-AND-SEEK ALONE") and each subsequent installment. I wouldn't even mind Eisner doubling the gum's price from a nickel to a dime apiece (15 cents in IMAX, natch) if it meant Walkie Talkie might emerge as Joe's vengeful CGI hell hound. Anyone got a better idea? Besides not making Bazooka Joe at all?

· Hammer gets Bazooka Joe to chew on [THR]