Variety reports that the WWE and Warner Bros. have teamed to produce a WWE-themed Flintstones cartoon movie. The movie will go straight to home video but will be released in early 2015 featuring WWE superstars in Flintstone-like roles.
Vince McMahon, John Cena and C.M. Punk are some of the characters that will be featured in the film which will be produced by Warner Bros. Animation and WWE Studios. WWE will work the promotional end by talking it up on its multitude of shows on TV and online. Warner Bros. will be distributing the movie.
The Flintstones is the second cartoon to be given a WWE twist as “Scooby Doo” featuring WWE Superstars will be distributed sometime before Wrestlemania 30 in March 2014.
Payout Perspective:
The article touches on The Rock ripping John Cena for wearing brightly colored clothes and calling him “Fruity Pebbles.” The WWE used this to develop a partnership with Post Cereals and Cena was on the cereal box of Fruity Pebbles. It shows the resourcefulness of the WWE and its ability to connect with brands and forging partnerships. For the WWE, the inroads with a family friendly sponsor (Post Cereals) assisted it to pitch this collaboration with Warner Bros. It allows the company to reach out to a kid-centric, family demographic it desires and it could also bolster a film division that continues to lag behind the rest of WWE business. For Warner Bros., it sees the WWE as infusing a fresh look into an aging brand (i.e. The Flintstones).
Are the Flintstones popular amongst today’s youngsters though? Sure they’re on the cereal boxes, but are kids actually watching them on TV? Seems like this would appeal to an older demographic with some Flintstones nostalgia (“The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones” has a special place in my heart, for example, but my cousin’s children didn’t know anything about them when I showed them the movie and had no interest in watching a cartoon they perceived as being based on, in their words, “cereal mascots”).