Popeye

Popeye, Olive Oyl, Brutus

A 3-D computer-animated film.

First announced around March 2010, with Avi Arad producing. Sony Pictures Animation set the release date for September 26, 2014. Genndy Tartakovsky was attached in June 2012. In May 2013 the release date pushed back to sometime in 2015. By 2014, the movie was put on indefinite hold as Tartakovsky is directing Hotel Transylvania 2 for 2015.

It was announced by Genndy Tartakovsky on his blog on March 12, 2015 that the film was being cancelled. According to Tartakovsky:

Popeye, at least, we put up a great screening, everybody really liked that sizzle, we got a positive reaction. I was in love with what we were doing, but I think the studio is going through changes and I don't know if they want to make the Popeye that I want to make. So they've got to make a decision…It was hard to let Popeye go, but that's the business.

The changes Tartakovsky refers to are likely the ouster of Sony Pictures Digital Productions president Bob Osher and his replacement by former DreamWorks producer Kristine Belson at Sony Pictures Animation. According to The Animation Guild, Belson "is likely itching to put her own stamp on SPA, so look for some previously-announced pictures to be pushed back... or pushed overboard."

On January 22, 2016, Deadline Hollywood reported that SPA was bringing in T. J. Fixman to rewrite the script for the film.