Jennifer Lopez & Anthony Ramos Mattel Animated Movie ‘Bob The Builder’ Heading To Amazon MGM Studios – The Dish
EXCLUSIVE: Sources are telling us that Amazon MGM Studios has won the bidding war for Mattel’s animated feature Bob the Builder which had Netflix, DreamWorks Animation and others vying for the project. Not all deals are complete, I understand.
Bob the Builder is being produced by Jennifer Lopez‘s Nuyorican Productions and ShadowMachine (who were behind Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio) and it stars Twisters actor Anthony Ramos in the title role. It was Ramos’ idea to deliver a Bob the Builder set in Puerto Rico, in a story that’s about the resilience of the Latino culture. He is a producer on the film. Bob’s motto in Spanish: “Si se puede” aka “Yes we can.” Felipe Vargas is adapting. TBD on whether the movie is for Prime or the big screen.
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Lopez isn’t currently in talks for a voiceover role in Bob the Builder, I understand.
In the movie, Roberto aka Bob (Ramos) travels to Puerto Rico for a major construction job, takes on issues affecting the island and digs deeper into what it means to build. Bob’s journey celebrates the vibrant and colorful textures of the Caribbean Latin nations and their people.
Lopez is no stranger to animation with her highest grossing animated movies being 2012’s Ice Age: Continental Drift At $877M worldwide and 2015’s DWA’s Home which made $386M.
Also producing Bob the Builder are Alex Bulkley and Corey Campodonico of the Oscar-winning animation and production studio ShadowMachine as well as Nuyorican’s Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas and Benny Medina. The project is being overseen by Kevin McKeon, Ivan Sanchez and Arturo Thur De Koós for Mattel and Natalie Haack Flores for Nuyorican.
The popular Bob the Builder TV series, centered on Bob the building contractor and his friends, was created with “little builders” (preschool/early elementary school-age children) in mind through stories empowering them to work as a team with imagination, positivity and the right tools. The worldwide syndicated show ran successfully for 12 seasons (1999-2011) and is especially known for Bob’s cheerful catchphrase: “Can we fix it? Yes, we can!”
Lopez has several projects with Amazon. Her This Is Me…Now is currently streaming on Prime and her upcoming movie, Unstoppable, world premiered at TIFF where it earned 72% fresh reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. The William Goldenberg directed pic, in which Lopez stars and produced, has an early December limited release and will hit Prime on Jan. 16. Unstoppable follows the life of wrestler Anthony Robles, who was born with one leg and won a national championship in 2011 while competing at Arizona State University.
This past summer, Lopez’s Netflix sci-fi film Atlas notched 60 million global views (or 119.4M hours viewed). The movie delivered the multiplatinum-selling, two-time Emmy nominee her fourth No. 1 streaming movie over the past two years after Netflix’s The Mother and Prime Video’s This Is Me Now: A Love Story and Shotgun Wedding.
Amazon MGM Studios did not return request for comment about the Bob the Builder project.
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