Elijah Wood Pitches TV Reboot Of Lucasfilm’s Underrated 33-Year-Old Adventure Franchise - MCE Notices | California State Portal

Following his work on Paramount+’s long-awaited Among Us adaptation, Elijah Wood is ready to see a TV reboot of an iconic Lucasfilm franchise.

Originally created by Dave Purcell and later developed by his brother Steve, Sam & Max memorably launched as a comic book series revolving around the titular anthropomorphic dog and rabbit private detective duo before getting a video game adaptation from LucasArts, before its later change to Lucasfilm Games. The years since have seen the franchise grow in a variety of directions, with the game rights eventually shifting over to Telltale Games, who produced a three-season episodic game series from it.

Now, in an interview with ScreenRant‘s Ash Crossan about his work in Among Us, Elijah Wood shared his hopes for a new Sam & Max TV reboot, specifically based on Lucasfilm’s Hit the Road title. The Emmy nominee praised the 33-year-old title for having “a really great art style,” which he further feels “lent itself to an animated series.”

Paired with Yvette Nicole Brown during the interview, the fellow Emmy nominee shared that, prior to becoming an actor, “I worked in an interactive [games] department with Elijah’s brother” in the early ’90s, having known her co-star’s family “in theory for years,” and calling point-and-click games like Sam & Max “just so fun” to have worked on. She also expressed her eagerness to see a new adaptation of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series, calling the original “a beautiful game.”

As for Among Us show creator, Owen Dennis, when it came to which video game he would like to next adapt or see adapted, he pointed to Nintendo’s Star Fox series, expressing that “I want to make Star Fox so badly.” He further shared that the key thing he loves of the games that would also prove an interesting creative task to face is the “heightened, slightly campy” tone of the games that also “take [themselves] super seriously“:

Owen Dennis: I love pulpy, camp stories that take themselves super seriously, because it’s almost a challenge. It’s a challenge to not have a character ever say, “Well, THAT happened!” If you can get a character to not say that, and everybody just treats everything that’s happening like it’s real with high stakes, that’s fun stuff. Luigi’s Mansion would be fun too.

First released in late 1993, Sam & Max Hit the Road is still seen as one of the most iconic point-and-click games of all time, with its 2D art style staying true to Purcell’s original comics and off-kilter tone, in particular, helping it stand out in the decades since. Despite being a success at the time, LucasArts’ efforts to make a sequel ultimately went nowhere, but it would later get a re-release onto modern computer platforms after LucasArts’ acquisition by Disney.

To Wood’s point that the original game’s art style lends itself well to an animated series, there was indeed such an adaptation with The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police, which ran for just one season on Fox Kids in the U.S. and YTV in Canada. It was never made clear why the series was cancelled, as it scored solid reviews, but has garnered enough of a cult following to get a special edition complete series release from Shout! Factory a decade after its cancellation, and is currently available to stream on Tubi and Pluto TV.

Given the rights to the Sam & Max franchise are a bit spread out at this point, being able to pull off a new animated series may prove tricky should Purcell or the now-named Lucasfilm Games decide they want to adapt Hit the Road for the screen. Since the game studio’s rebranding, they have primarily focused on new installments in their two biggest franchises, Indiana Jones and Star Wars.

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However, Lucasfilm Games continues to lean into nostalgia with everything from the long-awaited remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to co-publishing Return to Monkey Island with Devolver Digital. As such, there’s still a chance that the right pitch could entice them to look at reviving Sam & Max, either for a new game or an animated series.

It does also help Sam & Max‘s chances of an animated TV reboot that the video game adaptation genre continues to be an ever-growing favorite in recent years. With everything from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise to The Last of Us, Arcane: League of Legends and Devil May Cry getting their due on both the big and small screens, and many more still on the way, it would be interesting to see if Lucasfilm might one day work their magic with Purcell to bring the iconic private detective duo back in a new fashion.