We recently reported that ALF, the cranky but lovable alien from the planet Melmac was vying for a comeback.
Sure, he hadn’t been on TV since 1990, but there have been plans for an ALF movie, which is now apparently coming to pass.
ALF was created by Paul Fusco, and he was really pushing to bring him back. Although it wasn’t the biggest show of the eighties, ALF still has a lot of fans who I’m sure would love to see him come back, and there’s of course new generations who could learn the joys of ALF as well.
Now The Hollywood Reporter tells us the producer behind The Smurfs movie will be guiding ALF’s comeback, and he’s got a movie deal set up at Sony Pictures Animation.
The ALF movie will reportedly be done with a mix of CGI and live action, presumably similar to the Smurfs movie, although I’d like to think that today’s audiences would accept ALF as a puppet, and hope he won’t be too CGI. Fusco will again be providing ALF’s trademark voice as well.
The Smurfs was a big hit last year, and the Reporter also recently made interesting comparisons to ALF and Seth MacFarlane’s Ted. While you don’t suspect that an ALF movie will be as down and dirty as Ted, ALF certainly wasn’t strictly for kids, and he was definitely a salty character. (Maybe without the restriction of TV he’ll even utter a few profanities for effect, much like Robin Williams yelled out “Sh*t!” in the movie version of Popeye).
Since he’s been gone over twenty years, it will be interesting to see what ALF will be like modern day. Creator Fusco has definitely made a big effort to bring him back, and hopefully there’s enough goodwill from the eighties, and new fans eager to check him out, when ALF finally makes his big screen debut.
