The Flintstones Are Coming Back to Live Action — With Ryan Gosling Behind a Very Different Bedrock Story

According to Deadline, the new live-action project is being developed around a grown-up version of Bamm-Bamm Rubble.

If your Flintstones knowledge needs dusting off, Bamm-Bamm was Barney and Betty Rubble's adopted son and the best friend of Fred and Wilma Flintstone's daughter, Pebbles.

He was also ridiculously strong.

Give the kid a club and anything within swinging distance was probably about to have a very bad afternoon.

Bamm-Bamm and Pebbles were eventually aged into teenagers for the 1971 animated series The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show, while later Flintstones stories continued their relationship into adulthood.

Now it appears Warner Bros. wants to explore that grown-up version of the character in live action.

Exactly what that story will involve remains under wraps.

In fact, it's still very early days.

There's an important distinction to make here.

Ryan Gosling is producing the new Flintstones movie.

That doesn't mean he's playing Bamm-Bamm.

At least, nobody has announced that.

Gosling and Jessie Henderson are developing the movie through their Open Invite banner, and the project is currently looking for a writer.

No director has been announced, and we don't have any casting information yet.

So while the internet will inevitably spend the next few hours putting Gosling's head onto Bamm-Bamm's body, we're going to hold off on ordering the giant club.

For now.

Still, having Gosling involved behind the scenes makes this considerably more intriguing than another random attempt to dust off an old cartoon.

And there is an awful lot of history to dust off.

The last time Bedrock went live-action was back in 2000 with The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas.

But the movie most people probably remember arrived six years earlier.

Released in 1994, The Flintstones assembled an absolutely ridiculous cast.

John Goodman played Fred Flintstone.

Rick Moranis was Barney Rubble.

Elizabeth Perkins played Wilma.

Rosie O'Donnell became Betty.

Kyle MacLachlan played the villainous Cliff Vandercave.

Elizabeth Taylor also appeared as Wilma's mother.

Even now, John Goodman feels like somebody reached into the cartoon and somehow pulled Fred Flintstone into the real world.

The movie wasn't exactly showered with critical praise, but it became part of that wonderful period in the 1990s when Hollywood seemed determined to turn practically every cartoon we'd ever watched into a live-action movie.

And for plenty of us, that's precisely why it remains so memorable.

Six years later, The Flintstones came to Viva Rock Vegas.

This time, Mark Addy played Fred, while Stephen Baldwin played Barney, Kristen Johnston played Wilma, and Jane Krakowski played Betty.

The movie took things back to before Fred and Wilma were married, essentially giving The Flintstones its own live-action prequel.

It didn't exactly launch a new era of Bedrock adventures.

And after that, live-action Flintstones disappeared from cinemas.

Until now.

More than a quarter of a century later, Warner Bros. is apparently ready to try again.

But centring the movie on an adult Bamm-Bamm suggests they're at least approaching the material from a different direction.

If Bamm-Bamm is an adult, what does that mean for Pebbles?

The two characters have been linked for decades.

They grew up together, became teenagers together and were eventually married in the 1993 television movie I Yabba-Dabba Do!

So it's difficult to imagine a grown-up Bamm-Bamm movie completely ignoring Pebbles Flintstone.

Then there are Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty.

Will this be a Bedrock where the original characters are now grandparents?

Could the film introduce an entirely new generation of the Flintstone and Rubble families?

Right now, we simply don't know.

And because Warner Bros. is still searching for a writer, there's every chance some of those details haven't even been decided yet.

But that's exactly what makes the Bamm-Bamm angle interesting.

Instead of simply recasting Fred Flintstone and remaking the same thing, the filmmakers have a chance to move Bedrock forward.

Here's another interesting wrinkle.

This live-action movie isn't the only Flintstones project Warner Bros. has been developing.

Warner Bros. Pictures Animation also has an animated project called Meet the Flintstones in the works.

That project has been described as an origin story and is separate from Gosling's live-action Bamm-Bamm movie.

So Warner Bros. clearly hasn't forgotten about Bedrock.

Quite the opposite.

After years without a major theatrical Flintstones movie, the studio appears interested in finding new ways to use one of Hanna-Barbera's most famous creations.

Whether both projects ultimately make it all the way to cinemas remains to be seen.

Hollywood development can be a very long road.

Even when your car is powered by your feet.

It's easy to forget just how old The Flintstones actually is.

The original Hanna-Barbera series premiered in 1960.

Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty have therefore been shouting across neighbouring gardens, bowling, arguing and driving around in stone cars for more than six decades.

And somehow they remain instantly recognisable.

That's the magic of those old Hanna-Barbera characters.

You don't need to have watched an episode yesterday to know exactly who Fred Flintstone is.

You probably don't even need to have watched one in the last 30 years.

Show somebody that orange tunic and blue tie, and there's a fair chance they'll immediately hear:

Yabba dabba doo!

Which is why Hollywood was probably always going to try again eventually.

The surprising part is that Ryan Gosling is the bloke helping bring it back.

We'll reserve judgement until there's a writer, director, cast and — ideally — an actual movie.

But we'll admit it.

We're curious.

A straight remake of The Flintstones would have been easy.

Find another Fred.

Find another Barney.

Build Bedrock.

Release movie.

Instead, making Bamm-Bamm an adult and potentially exploring what happened to the next generation gives the filmmakers somewhere new to go while keeping all that nostalgia sitting in the background.

And if Fred and Barney eventually appear?

Even better.

Just don't ask us who should replace John Goodman yet.

Some casting is impossible to beat.

More than 25 years after Viva Rock Vegas, live-action Bedrock is officially back in development.

And this time, little Bamm-Bamm isn't so little anymore.

Yabba dabba doo.