Quinta Brunson Is Bringing Back Betty Boop

For the first time in almost 100 years, Betty Boop is returning to the big screen. On May 20, Variety announced that Quinta Brunson will “develop and star” in a movie about Miss Boop and her relationship with her creator, Max Fleischer. Originally designed as an anthropomorphized French poodle, Boop transformed into a sassy spoof of a Jazz Age singer and flapper (and, it must be said, sex symbol), and now her iconography can be found anywhere and everywhere, from cartoons to Broadway to T-shirts you buy at shops near the beach. Mark Fleischer, Max’s grandson, said, “Quinta so embodies Betty’s love of life, intelligence, humor, sassiness, and compassion that the relationship between her as Betty and Max burst into life at its mere mention.”

Not unlike Barbie, Betty Boop was a revolutionary figure at the time she was created, becoming one of cinema’s first animated female stars. Boop and Brunson feel like a perfect pairing of icon and star, or star and icon, depending on how you want to look at it. The only thing wrong with the project is that it’s not coming out tomorrow. We’ll have to wait a little longer for Boop to go big. Who knows, maybe we’ll get to see her in Imax.