I stumbled across a little piece of info on ComingSoon.net this morning: Walden Media (the production company that gave us The Chronicles of Narnia) has acquired the rights to “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?”
The elusive world-traveling criminal, often seen wearing her trademark red hat and trench coat, appeared in multiple computer games, a game show, and a the cartoon Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? that originally aired in the 90’s.
The website gives the following description of the plot:
When the ACME agency’s greatest detective Carmen Sandiego becomes the world’s greatest thief, it’s up to her former partner to follow her clues and track her down. Their cat-and-mouse game leads the partner to confront a greater mystery: Is Carmen really a thief or a hero?
They also mention that Jennifer Lopez will be producing and starring in the film. My best guess is that she will likely be portraying Carmen, and I don’t know how I feel about that. I think I’d prefer an unknown in the role.
Also, part of the fun of Carmen is her mystique. You only catch glimpses of her in the games and even the cartoon. Reveal too much about her, and she loses that. I have a feeling a feature film about her will destroy the mystery, much the way Attack of the Clones took away the mystery of Boba Fett for Star Wars fans. (and let’s not forget to mention that it also changed his accent in the Original Trilogy, and while I have no issues with Temuera Morrison’s voice, I still find the change jarring. I liked the raspy Boba Fett voice better).
But I admit to being a little too emotionally involved in the material. To this day, much of what I know about geography I owe to the original game. My Apple computer game came with an almanac that aided me when searching for clues, and I searched for Carmen (usually as Detective Drew or some other Nancy Drew-inspired alias) from one side of the globe to the other. I also have watched the cartoon recently as it’s aired on the Hub network, and it’s excellent for learning about history and geography. (yeah, I’m a big nerd. I like educational programming).
We’ll wait and see if this film actually gets produced, and I’m certainly interested to see what direction the producers go with it.