EXCLUSIVE: There is a hot bidding war heating up for Mattel’s animated take of Bob the Builder with heavy interest from Netflix, Amazon MGM Studios, and DreamWorks Animation and others. We hear that offers have been made, and that no one is merely circling for this animated feature which speaks greatly to the Latino and Hispanic community.
The project, which we told you about last month, has Jennifer Lopez‘s Nuyorican Productions producing with ShadowMachine (which was behind Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio) and In the Heights star Anthony Ramos. In fact, it was Ramos idea to deliver a Bob the Builder set in Puerto Rico, one which is about the resilience of the Latino culture. Bob’s motto in Spanish: “Si se puede” aka “Yes we can.” Felipe Vargas is adapting.
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. It’s too early to report if Lopez will take a voiceover role in the movie. Among her highest grossing animated pics are 2012’s Ice Age: Continental Drift At $877M worldwide and 2015’s DWA’s Home which made $386M.
Also producing are Alex Bulkley and Corey Campodonico of the Academy Award-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 television 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 in the hopper with Amazon. Her new project This Is Me…Now is currently streaming on the OTT service and she’s has the upcoming movie Unstoppable: The Anthony Robles Story with them.
