Director Tim Story brings a tale of Tom & Jerry to big and small screens
Tim Story was enjoying a hot career directing music videos throughout the late-1990s when he took the step up to feature films. He scored with a couple of hits – “Barbershop” and “Taxi.” He met with less box office success when he brought two “Fantastic Four” films to the screen, then had more winners with “Think Like a Man,” “Ride Along,” and their sequels. His terrific 2019 reboot of the “Shaft” series was underappreciated, but around the time he was making it, something very different came his way – a script and an offer to direct the Oscar-winning cartoon rivals Tom and Jerry in a feature film that would merge animated and live-action characters (including Chloe Grace Moretz and Michael Pena), and place them all in the midst of contemporary Manhattan.
Story, a longtime fan of Hanna-Barbera’s "Tom & Jerry" shorts, jumped at the opportunity. He spoke about the film during a Zoom chat from his home in Los Angeles.
Q: You were a kid in the 1970s, watching "Tom & Jerry" on TV. Who else were you watching back then?
A: Oh, there were so many different cartoons I watched. “The Jetsons,” “The Flintstones,” a little bit of “Super Friends,” and everything from “Kimba” to “Popeye.” But I remember that Tom and Jerry were on all the time, every afternoon when I came home from school. I never got sick of them; I was fixated on them.
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Q: When you were first asked to do this film, with these iconic characters, were you at all nervous?
A: Sure. I wasn’t having any second thoughts about it, but when you finally say I want to do this, you know that a lot of people are going to have an opinion of how you bring it to life. But I felt comfortable in what these characters were to me. I felt that I had so much love for them that I wouldn’t let the Hanna-Barbera world down.
Q: What were the first things you did to prepare for it?
A: I went back and watched some of the old classic cartoons. I even watched a bit of Charlie Chaplin, because I was looking for any inspiration that would allow me to figure out how to get a lot of humor and storytelling with characters that don’t speak.
Q: Part of the reason the old shorts worked so well was the crazy sound effects that accompanied the wild action. Was I hearing the actual sounds from the cartoons in your film?
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A: Yeah! We used a lot of the original sounds from the cartoons. We got some of Tom’s screams from the archives, and we found some of the actual impacts – of the characters hitting each other. We would sometimes put those sounds into the mix, but also give them a little more beef.
Q: That leads to the question of violence in those cartoons. They were very violent, in a creative way, and your film is, too. In these PC times, did that cause any problems with the studio?
A: No. I remember asking the Warner Brothers folks if they had any reservations about us taking the violence where we wanted to go. They said no; they said make a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The question I am still getting asked is did you water down the violence? I always say no. We made it a point to stick right to what these characters would do.
Q: There’s also a quick scene near the end, where two cartoon elephants are startled. One says, “OMG.” The other says a slightly muffled, “WTF.” How did you get that one by the censors?
A: (laughs) We just went for it. Like with all films, we had to go through a ratings board, and our film continued to pass the test. You put it in, and Warner Brothers doesn’t say anything to you. Then you give it to the ratings board, and they don’t say anything. We just wanted to be sure that we made something that spoke to all audiences, and we found that anytime we could wink at that, we made it a point to do so. But I hope we haven’t given any moms and dads a reason to turn off the TV.
Q: What do your own kids think of the film?
A: They’re 16, 14, and 9. My older ones aren’t watching cartoons that much, but my 9-year-old definitely is. I was able to introduce him to Tom and Jerry two years ago when I first got this film. He didn’t know who they were, so I sat him down and let him watch them, and he must have watched seven in a row. He has seen the new film in several stages, and luckily, he got the same thing that I got from them when I was young.
“Tom and Jerry” opens in selected theaters and premiers on HBO Max on Feb. 26.
Ed Symkus can be reached at esymkus@rcn.com.