Cool World
| Cool World | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Ralph Bakshi |
| Produced by | Frank Mancuso, Jr. |
| Written by | |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Mark Isham |
| Cinematography | John A. Alonzo |
| Edited by |
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Production
company |
Rough Draft Studios (in-credits)
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| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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102 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $28,221,178 |
| Box office | $14,110,589 |
Cool World is a 1992 American live-action/animated fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi, and starring Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne and Brad Pitt. It tells the story of a cartoonist who finds himself in the animated world he thinks he created, and is seduced by one of the characters, a comic strip vamp who wants to be real. Cool World marked Bakshi's return to feature films after nine years. The film was originally pitched as an animated horror film about an underground cartoonist who fathers an illegitimate half-real/half-cartoon daughter, who hates herself for what she is and tries to kill him.
During production, Bakshi's original screenplay was scrapped by producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. and heavily rewritten by Michael Grais and Mark Victor in secret. Reviews praised the film's visuals, but criticized the story and characters, as well as the combination of live-action and animation, which some critics felt was unconvincing. The film would eventually gross only half its production budget.
In 1945, World War II veteran Frank Harris returns to his mother in Las Vegas. Riding a motorcycle that he won in Italy, Frank and his mother are struck by a drunk couple. Frank survives, but his mother dies. As an ambulance takes her away, Frank is transported to Cool World, an animated city of weird landscapes and random cartoon violence. He was inadvertently teleported by Dr. Vincent Whiskers, a doctor who created a "spike" that was supposed to take him to the real world, but brought Frank to Cool World instead. Whiskers finds Frank useful enough to run things in the Cool World while he is gone to the real world.
Forty seven years later, Jack Deebs, a cartoonist, is detained after murdering a man he found in bed with his wife. He creates the highly acclaimed comic book series Cool World, which features the femme fatale Holli Would. On the night before his release, Holli summons Jack into the Cool World, and he sees Holli dance in the local dance club. After he sees her dance, Jack is teleported back to the real world. It turns out that Holli wants to enter the real world, but is forbidden to do so by Frank, who is now a detective for the Cool World Police Department.
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Wikipedia