Jennifer Lopez is planning to take children’s TV favourite Bob the Builder to Puerto Rico as “Roberto” in a film the singer and actress will co-produce.
The announcement comes hot on the heels of the box office success of another Mattel character, Barbie.
Roberto/Bob, whose catchphrase is “Can we fix it? Yes, we can!”, will be voiced by Hamilton star Anthony Ramos.
The film will “dig deeper into what it means to build” and will celebrate the Caribbean Latin nations, Mattel said.
Bob the Builder launched on BBC TV in 1999 and ran for 12 series.
Voiced by Men Behaving Badly and Line of Duty star Neil Morrissey, the cheerful construction worker was also on global channels including Nick Jr and PBS Kids.
Our Zoo actor Lee Ingleby voiced Bob in the UK from 2015, as part of a Channel 5 makeover that saw computer-generated animation replace stop-motion.
In the show, Bob, his colleague Wendy and their friends “work together to get the job done”.
Ramos, who is also a co-producer, said he was “proud” to add elements of life “inspired by my own”.
He said it would be “a movie about friends working together, a celebration of a beautiful home they share, and how love can help to conquer any obstacle in your way”.
Toys reinvented in film
Bob the Builder is just one of the children’s characters that are being developed for big screen reinventions following the commercial and critical success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.
It was the highest-grossing film of 2023, and has earned eight Oscar nominations, five Bafta nominations and two Golden Globe wins.
Toy films now in the works include Polly Pocket directed by Lena Dunham and starting Lily Collins. Barney the Dinosaur, produced by Daniel Kaluuya, is reported to be “adult” and will “lean into millennial angst”.
Other Mattel films in the pipeline include Hot Wheels, produced by Star Wars: The Force Awakens director JJ Abrams, plus Masters of the Universe, Matchbox and Thomas & Friends.
