Slashdot Mirror
Futurama Voices Could Be Recast
Svippy writes "According to reports surfacing on the Internet, Futurama may be recast. The animated series is due to return next year on Comedy Central, but may not be the same as we once knew it. 'As part of the announcement, the show's producers said stars including West, Sagal and DiMaggio had all signed on to return. Turns out that wasn't true. The stars had all expressed interest in returning. But with the budget for Futurama dramatically slashed, the salary offers came in well below what the thesps were asking.' Phil LaMarr posted 20th Century Fox's request for auditions on his Facebook page. However, some are skeptical about whether it's a real casting call or purely a stunt to reduce the salaries of the voice actors."
Bite my shiny metal ass!
I want to point people to the following articles as well:
Both making very compelling cases.
Clicked pie.
During the commentary's for the both the movies and the season DVDs all the voice actors always said that it was their favorite show to work on. It was hard to tell if this was simply pandering but they sounded genuinely sincere. Especially Billy West and John DiMaggio who seemed to be to big fans of the show. And I don't think Katty Segal is being flooded with job offers. The only ones I see moving on are the greatly talented Maurice Lamarche and Tres McNeil who do a lot of work other than Futurama and only play secondary characters on the show. Read More... 3 comments top tags
-
I absolutely will NOT watch it without the original cast. I can't imagine anyone other than Billy West voicing Fry.
You know, when a new voice appears on an old show playing an existing character (memory escapes me at this moment for an example, but I know this has happened), I always wonder why folks generally don't just make the new voice sound like the old voice. This happened to at least a couple childhood cartoons of mine - the voice suddenly changed and ... WTF?
Let's hope they decide to bring in folks that sound the same (or very similar) if they do recast. Having different voices would be pretty lame.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
In just about every anime, cartoon series, and live-action where they've tried to swap one actor's voice for another, the series usually tanks not long after the switch is made. The only thing worse for a series is to get someone pregnant, involve a baby, or suddenly tack on a female lead or support role when one previously wasn't present. Or a consult with Joss Whedon.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Wait, this isn't good news at all.
Seriously, the voice actors in Futurama gave their characters heart and soul. It's not just that the actors are good (they are, of course) but the characters have grown along with the actors, such that in my mind, and in the mind of many fans I am sure, the two are inseparable.
Without the original cast, I won't be watching, simple as that.
It's going to cost more money in the long run to produce an abject failure than to put more money into the show from the start and hoping the fanbase comes back.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Not very? If you want the cast to stay on, either the cast needs to be appealed to, or the source of the money (Comedy Central) does. Not the production crew.
20th Century Fox Television claims the voice actors wanted 75,000 dollars per episode. Which is apparently close to ten times as much as usual.
This seems extremely unlikely by these people, who love and worship the show, that they would risk its stability for their own greed.
My assumption is that 20th Century Fox Television is either making stuff up or playing some gag.
Clicked pie.
Obviously the executives didn't take the Torgo's Executive Powder jokes all that well...
I've invented a device which makes you read this in your head, in my voice!
Which is a good thing because you won't actually be hearing my voice while you watch the show! Better turn subtitles on, mwa?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
They have what, 100+ hours of speech recorded for Futurama, presumably the original masters as well? Probably 1,000 hours of speech for each character on The Simpsons on masters. Not to mention accurate closed captioning for the voicings. How hard would it be to write an algorithm to cut and paste the correct words (picking the correct word inflection based on word placement in the sentence/context - presumably there are angry, happy, elated, monotone versions of most words, and the sound files can be edited to convincingly make them sound in context) together? Sure, you'd have to hand-synthesize the occasional odd word or celebrity-head-in-a-jar's name, but we're probably not very far off from being able to fire the voice actors after the third season of a dialog-driven cartoon.
moox. for a new generation.
I work in the business and I saw a casting notice for this go out yesterday. Right now (if you're a member) you can see the notice on a site called Actor's Access here and the sides are up on Showfax.
Casting notices for shows like this almost never appear on a site like that (it's a step above Craigslist), so my best guess this is a negotiation tactic to convince the cast to accept contracts that pay less, in line with the reduced budget for the show.
It just won't be right without Wakka as Bender :)
They could replace ... the kids, the rasta dude, the japanese chick, etc.
They could find an even sexier Leelaaaah... Leeluuuhh... Lee-Laaa.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
20th Century Fox Television claims the voice actors wanted 75,000 dollars per episode. Which is apparently close to ten times as much as usual.
According to whom? The Simpsons actors reportedly earn $400,000 per episode. Sure, $75,000 might be ten times what a voice actor earns for an episode of an afternoon kids' cartoon, but we're talking about a prime time show.
Breakfast served all day!
Farnsworth: Well, it looks like I'll be needing my heroic bureaucrat back. At severely-reduced pay, of course. [The staff cheer.] LaBarbara: It's better than nothing. Fry: What about me? Can I come back at severely-reduced pay? Hermes: You got it, mon! In fact, severely-reduced pay all around!
If they all have East Indian accents, then the question is answered.
Table-ized A.I.
on the show? The crew gets into a horrible accident that requires them to get voice box transplants, and Bender's voice gets erased and he is programmed with a different one.
This is almost as bad in a TV series when an actor or actress is replaced with a different one, and it usually happens to Soap Operas and really Cheesy TV shows. The only TV show to do this on a regular basis and still survive was Saturday Night Live, who kept reinventing themselves with new comedians.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Maybe this (or the more normal work schedule of a normal series rather than the "movies"), will get some of the voice actors to return to their original form.
I think that some of the actors (particuarly Phil LaMarr, interestingly) never quite got the hang of their old characters again.
Losing the old cast would still be a death blow to the show, though.
They only paid me to say it once, then they doubled it up on the soundtrack. Cheap bastards