Warner Bros. Sets Out to Reboot 1993’s Successful Family Film FREE WILLY

Free Willy Reboot in the Works at Warner Bros.

A whale of a tale, 1993’s box-office hit, Free Willy, has been slated to get a reboot over at Warner Bros. 

Warner Bros. will be re-imagining the 1993 box-office smash family film, Free Willy. Bringing the beloved tale back to the screen will take careful handling and the film’s studio should be more than up to the task of bringing the beloved whale tale back for new family-friendly viewers.

The legendary Lauren Schuler Donner will be co-producing the re-working of the popular family-accessible material soon. The original Free Willy featured a super cast that included the late, great Michael Madsen, the young (at the time) Jason James Richter and Lori Petty, none of whom are likely to come back for the re-working of the original film. They could come back, though, so we’ll keep you abreast of the casting as new developments are announced. The Russo brothers’ AGBO will be the company co-financing the upcoming whale tale reboot.

Jade Halley Bartlett (Miller’s Girl) has been tapped to co-write the new re-imagined film alongside Mary-Margaret Kunze. This new remake will have to do a lot right to match the quality of the original 1993 family film. One of the old movie’s greatest qualities was the use of a Michael Jackson tune, Will You Be There, at the film’s lovely closing credits as Willy the whale was finally freed in the film. The second Free Willy ended with the use of the Pretenders’ song, Forever Young in 1995. A good tune at the end is a signature quality of these Willy movies.

Free Willy opened in mid-July of 1993 opposite Hocus Pocus, the Bette Midler movie about three witches wreaking havoc on a small town. Call the release of the witch movie ill-timed because box-office grosses were geared mainly towards the success of Free Willy, not the Halloween friendly, Hocus Pocus, which would later go on to be a cult classic and also spawn a sequel.

While Jason James Richter was a kid at the time of the original Free Willy, he is all grown up now, so it will be interesting to see if he’ll have anything to do with this upcoming reboot film. Free Willy could once again be a hot property with audiences and new viewers will enjoy seeing the intriguing whale that the movie will most likely present to its viewers.

Free Willy earned $77 million domestically in 1993 and an additional $76 million internationally, making its total $153 million at the worldwide box-office. Hocus Pocus made less than $50 million worldwide even though its sequel was a huge streaming success.

It becomes clear that audiences will want to see a new take on Free Willy when the newest movie has been completed and unveiled to potential audiences. The casting of the new film shouldn’t matter too much as the film should already have a built-in summer audience due to the fact that the three installments in the series were released to fairly decent overall box-office results, although the first film was the only true runaway financial hit out of the first three films.

Leave your thoughts on the new Free Willy reboot below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons.

Readers seeking more movie news can visit our Movie News Page, our Movie News Twitter Page, and our Movie News Facebook Page.

Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Mobile App, Google News, Apple News, Feedly, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit, Telegram, Mastodon, Flipboard, Bluesky, and Threads. This news was brought to our attention by Deadline.