Back in May 2022 one of my first published features made it to the pages of Film Stories magazine. Looking at the story of one of my favourite cancelled films, Bananaman The Movie, alongside the work of Emanata Studios adapting DC Thomson comic characters far beyond the ‘Beano-verse’. You can read the full feature on the Film Stories website, behind a slight paywall, or buy a copy of the full issue here for just £5.99. A brief excerpt from the feature can be found below.
“The traditional trope across various superhero formats when a new figure flies in front of gathering crowds for the first time is to have exclaimed questions as to whether the spectacle is a bird or a plane, or in some cases perhaps an egg salad sandwich. However, for a brief moment in 2014 the object inviting us to #PeelThePower was undeniably a bright yellow banana peel splayed across half the Earth.
Zoom in further to the iconic address of 29 Acacia Road and we would have likely found Eric, a schoolboy who leads an amazing double life. For when Eric eats a banana an amazing transformation occurs. Eric is Bananaman! Ever alert for the call to action. At least within the pages of The Beano where the comic staple currently resides, having moved from The Dandy and Nutty since first appearing in 1980. As for an outing on the big screen it appears that the character is yet to come to life there, despite some considerable pushes.
2014 was a time when everyone seemed to ‘realise’ that they too needed a cinematic universe, or at least some form of comic-book or superhero related feature. And Britain’s answer to this was to bring the blue and yellow wonder of Bananaman to cinemas in live-action glory. The project was announced by DC Thomson and Elstree Studio Productions on a now shut-down website (bananamanmovie.com), including a triumphant orchestral version of the theme to the character’s 80s animated series. “2015” read the text at the bottom of the webpage, however in September of that year it was changed to “coming soon” before the site was ultimately taken down completely.
As 2016 arrived and the start of a succession of failed cinematic universe launches began Bananaman the Movie appeared to still be on the cards. A musical was in the works, eventually playing for a brief one-month span (you get more for panto) at Southwark Playhouse in December 2017-January 2018. Alongside the Facebook announcement for this it was revealed “this fruitiest of superheroes is experiencing a revival elsewhere – Bananaman the Movie is also in development”. The same Peel the Power branding was being used, alongside a similar starry background, yet apparently the musical, which garnered a number of positive reviews, was largely unrelated to any attempt to launch a film…”
Just A Little Bit Random 