Adored by the Network: TBS Latin America seems to be in love with this movie, since in 2022 they show it at least once a month.
Box Office Bomb: Budget, $80 million. Box office, $68,514,844. The movie's financial failure led WB to think that the Looney Tunes don't have the lasting appeal that they hoped, cancelling the planned Looney Tunes shorts in production and effectively giving the "That's All, Folks!" to Warner Bros. Feature Animation (until 2014's The LEGO Movie) along with the theatrical career of director Joe Dante (who was already on bad terms with Warner Brothers and Universal), and the cinematic career of star Brendan Fraser, who didn't do another studio film for five years. This movie, along with failures from Disney and DreamWorks, helped bring down traditional 2D animated films until Disney released The Princess and the Frog in 2009.
Celebrity Voice Actor: The Brazillian dub has movie and TV actors Marcello Antony and Débora Falabella as DJ and Kate respectively.
Joe Dante rarely discusses this film in great detail, only doing so if an interviewer asks him about it. He usually can only talk about the Executive Meddling behind it, and once said "the less said about [the movie], the better."
"I signed onto this movie very soon after Chuck's passing to be the keeper of the flame and to make sure the characters were presented in the classic tradition, to which I think we succeeded. The actual making of the movie was a very contentious enterprise because "the powers that be" didn't really want to make the movie, but the marketing department did, so there was a lot of tension as to what kind of movie it should be, and what the humor was. It was really not a pleasant situation for a year and a half of your life to be making a Bugs Bunny movie that no one is happy on it. (Laughs) There are some very nice things in it, but it was my last studio movie because it wasn't a pleasant situation. The irony was that, after all the battling back and forth about the content of the movie, it didn't make any money because they took the cartoons off television and the kids didn't know who Bugs Bunny was, so they didn't show up at the box office."
In the TV documentary "From Pencil To Pixels," an interview with Eric Goldberg shows that he was already pretty unhappy with the film as it was being made, expressing his frustration over how Warner Bros. was pushing for a Looney Tunes revival while simultaneously wringing out the political incorrectness that made it so great.
Creator Breakdown: Brendan Fraser signed on to the movie after he had been turned down for the role of Superman in what would eventually become Superman Returns. He later explained that he felt so disappointed in himself, he took the role to take himself down a peg before someone else did — hence the scene at the end of the movie where he gets to punch himself in the face, which he was so insistent on doing that he even showed up in his own (in his words, "ostentatious") wardrobe.
Due to the bad experience on this film and several others before it, this was Joe Dante's last major Hollywood film, only directing indy foreign films and TV show episodes since then.
Warner Bros. Feature Animation, which had yet to produce a single financially successful film in its barely-seven-year existence (mostly due to poor advertising and the studio only having a passive interest in animated features) finally collapsed after this film failed. The fact that it was released just as Hollywood was abandoning hand-drawn animation didn't help.
Dueling Works: With Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers. Both films feature the most iconic characters of their respective studios. Despite Back in Action's underperformance at the box office. The Three Musketeers was the winner.
Early Draft Tie-In: The video game opens with the alternate opening found in the deleted scenes compilation.
Franchise Killer: Just because the film is not by any means abysmal doesn't mean that it won't cause this.
The faltering merger of Time Warner and AOL caused all official merchandise to end years earlier, but this film put an end to any major Looney Tunes production for good, and the franchise's status had degenerated to a state of near-obscurity for the rest of the 2000s. It wouldn't be until eight years later that the franchise would return to relevance with The Looney Tunes Show, but even that was short-lived. There wouldn't be another big-budget Looney Tunes movie for 18 years, when Warner Bros. noticed the nostalgia-driven popularity of Space Jam and produced a direct sequel to that film.
Not only this, but one year after the film's release, the classic Looney Tunes shorts were removed from Cartoon Network, a fate not even Tom and Jerry: The Movie could've caused on the original shorts, and were not seen on TV for nearly half a decade until Cartoon Network slowly began to bring them back in 2009, only to end up removing the classic shorts again by 2016 (along with Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production and Baby Looney Tunes, the latter returning to Cartoon Network for the first time in years a few months before). Around the time the Looney Tunes shorts were removed, The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries reruns were removed from Cartoon Network, Baby Looney Tunes took long hiatuses and ended up stretching its 13-episode second season for over two years and Duck Dodgers also took a long hiatus before airing its last episodes on Boomerang.
Genre-Killer: One of many films released at the Turn of the Millennium which helped cement the death of theatrical hand-drawn animation in Hollywood.
In the US, Wendy's had a set of five toys in their Kids' Meals. There was a slide puzzle with a figure of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck in a wind-up car, a Tweety bobblehead, a Taz spinning top, and a passport with stickers.
In Europe, Burger King had a set of five pull-back toys. These consisted of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Taz, Marvin the Martian, and Yosemite Sam.
In Australia, Hungry Jack's had a set of five connectable movie set pieces featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Yosemite Sam, and Wile E. Coyote.
Also in the video game, Jim Cummings voices Taz instead of Brendan Fraser.
Joe Alaskey replaces Billy West as Bugs Bunny, taking over as his go-to voice actor at this point until 2011.
Jeff Bennett replaces Greg Burson and Maurice LaMarche as Foghorn Leghorn and Yosemite Sam. This was due to Burson facing legal troubles at the time that led to his arrest in 2004 (a year after this movie was released) and LaMarche's voice was weak from a previous project, and couldn't properly duplicate Sam's harsh vocals.
Due to Burson's above mentioned legal troubles, Bruce Lanoil took over as Pepe Le Pew here.
Billy West fills in as Speedy and Pepe in the tie-in video game.
The Brazilian dub marked the first time Alexandre Moreno was Bugs Bunny, with his long time dubber Mário Monjardim giving his blessing to being replaced as he felt his performances as the character were starting to only go through to the motions (as opposed to how he always went in for his other signature role Shaggy).
The Other Marty: A lot of voice actors were switched out by the time production ended:
Billy West was originally cast as Bugs, but halfway through, was replaced by Joe Alaskey. He was kept as Elmer Fudd, however, and would voice Bugs in several tie-in commercials for the movie.
Jeff Bennett originally recorded a lot of Daffy's lines before also getting replaced by Joe Alaskey.
Bob Bergen performed several of Tweety's lines, but the final film features animator Eric Goldberg in the role, though he still kept his role as Porky and returned as Tweety for the tie-in video game.
Maurice LaMarche recorded lines for Yosemite Sam, but his voice was weak from a previous project, and couldn't properly duplicate Sam's harsh vocals, so he was replaced with Jeff Bennett.
Jim Cummings was supposed to have voiced Taz like normal, but was ultimately replaced by Brendan Fraser. He does voice Taz in the tie-in video game.
Release Date Change: Originally, the movie was scheduled to release in July of 2003. However, it was pushed back to November to give the film more time during its Troubled Production. Though given the film likely would have been totally overshadowed by Finding Nemo in a summer release slot, November seemed like a safe bet.
Screwed by the Network: The film's failure probably can be blamed on when it was released and how Warner Bros. handled it. While it's unknown how it would have faired if it had released in July as originally plannednote while the film would have had to have competed with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, there were no major animated films released during that month aside from Box Office BombSinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. When the film's production kicked into gear, it was pushed back to November, putting it a week after Elf, releasing it the same week as the critically acclaimed Master and Commander, and a week before The Cat in the Hat. This, combined with Warner Bros barely advertising the film, makes it no wonder why the film failed.
Spared by the Cut: The original ending had The Acme Chairman get Swallowed Whole by Tweety who had been turned into a pterodactyl. The final ending has the Chairman get turned into a monkey.
Star-Derailing Role: For Brendan Fraser, as he didn't have any mainstream roles for five years afterwards, barring a supporting role in Crash. He later revealed in an interview that this was less due to the film itself and more due to a mounting series of professional and personal issues.
Throw It In!: Brendan Fraser kept imitating the Tasmanian Devil, so the producers decided to let him voice Taz.
Joe Dante described the production as, to put it lightly, "the longest year-and-a-half of my life". But the troubles didn't really start there...
Development can be traced back to 1996 when Space Jam was released, with the same crew in charge of a sequel (with Joe Pytka as director and Spike Brandt & Tony Cervone in charge of animation). However, Michael Jordan was too displeased with the film to do Space Jam 2 and it turned out the artists were being lied so they could do designs. The film evolved into a James Bond/Austin Powers parody (Spy Jam) with Jackie Chan, who quickly resigned as he frequently clashed with the upper-heads.
The film was then cancelled... until Dante was called. He, alongside writer Larry Doyle and animation director Eric Goldberg, took the film in a different direction, becoming a thinly-veiled Take That! against Space Jam and the studio itself. This didn't sit well with executives note who were infuriated that Space Jam's profits were eaten up by box-office bombs and low-rated TV shows, who refused to give the crew creative control other than keeping the characters' personalities, and the animated sequences differ greatly from Dante's plans.
Back in Action's release was also the subject of a big stroke of bad luck: it was supposed to premiere in July, but was delayed when the troubled production became apparent. It was then postponed to November, coming out almost seven years to the date of Space Jam 's release, closer to the Veteran's Day holiday weekend and in the midst of the early holiday movie season. Unfortunately, the new release date was just after those of Brother Bear and Elf, just before those of The Cat in the Hat and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and during the week the Occupation of Iraq began. This and WB refusing to promote the film because of its chaotic production and overrun budget caused the film to tank, grossing just $22 million domestically and $68 million worldwide (out of an $80 million budget).
The film (in its Spy Jam stage of early development) was originally more of a James Bond/Austin Powers parody but the idea was scrapped and became more of a modern Mission: Impossible parody instead.
Area 52 was originally just called Area 51 and at one point the whole sequence was planned to be cut from the film.
Pepé Le Pew was originally going to have more lines in the film, but his role was reduced to a very brief cameo instead.
According to the deleted scenes, the movie was originally to have a completely different opening and ending plot progression, the opening being a Batman parody while the plot itself would have stayed in the jungle and involved Tweety (who was apparently supposed to stick around with the heroes) to a greater extent.
Most of this would be realized in the video game tie-in. While the game still has the "around the world" subplot, the game does open with a Batman parody, and the final boss battle has Tweety being transformed into a pterodactyl to fight a reanimated monkey statue.
The above script also featured a deleted moment from the restaurant scene in which Kate tried to show Bugs a more modern look for himself, but he was distracted giving autographs to Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, who thank him and leave, breaking a glass in the process.
The game was supposed to be released on the Xbox but it was cancelled after the film's failure.
In the scene where Daffy collapses the Warner Bros. Tower, the Warner Siblings were originally going to fall out of the tower, and it's not known why they were cut out. Although, if the posts above were any indication, they were far from the only ones. This idea was later used in the video game Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt almost a year later.
Based on the success of this film, there would have been a proper Space Jam sequel/spin-off called Skate Jam with Tony Hawk in the lead next to Bugs Bunny, but the idea didn't happen, and Space Jam wouldn't have a proper sequel until 2021's Space Jam: A New Legacy.
There were plans to make more Looney Tunes short films. After the financial failure of Back in Action, said films were scrapped, with only six being released on DVDs and HBO Max.
Working Title: The film was at one point titled Spy Jam, but was dropped to distance it from Space Jam.
Early Draft Tie-In: Tweety's transformation during the final boss fight was originally planned for the movie before being cut. It can be seen in the bonus features for the movie's home release.
for the film done by Eric Goldberg himself, Bugs and Daffy were both voiced by Greg Burson.