The Warner Animation Group is in negotiations with Tim Story ("Fantastic Four") to direct a new "Tom and Jerry", live-action, animation hybrid feature, among the 'evergreen' Hanna-Barbera cartoon titles the studio controls:
Created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the premise centers on a rivalry between 'Tom', a cat and 'Jerry', a mouse, based around violent slapstick comedy...
...inspiring Matt Groening's "The Itchy & Scratchy Show".
In its original run, Hanna and Barbera produced 114 Tom and Jerry shorts for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1940 to 1958, winning seven Academy Awards (!) for Animated Short Film.
After the MGM cartoon studio closed in 1957, MGM revived the series with Gene Deitch directing an additional 13 "Tom and Jerry" shorts for Rembrandt Films from 1961 to 1962. "Tom and Jerry" then became the highest-grossing animated short film series of that time, overtaking "Looney Tunes".
Chuck Jones then produced another 34 shorts with Sib Tower 12 Productions between 1963 and 1967. Three more shorts were produced, including "The Mansion Cat" (2001), "The Karate Guard (2005) and "A Fundraising Adventure" (2014).
A number of spin-offs have been made, including TV series "The Tom and Jerry Show" (1975), "The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show" (1980–82), "Tom and Jerry Kids" (1990–93), "Tom and Jerry Tales" (2006–08) and "The Tom and Jerry Show" (2014–present).
The first feature-length film based on the series, "Tom and Jerry: The Movie" was released in 1992, with an additional 13 direct-to-video films produced since 2002.
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