Corona | Coming Attractions

To many Americans the name Roy Rogers conjures up images of cowboys and a horse named Trigger. During the 1940s and through the '50s, Rogers, his horse and lady sidekick Dale Evans made nearly 90 western films together and then went on to star in their own TV show. Licensing also got in on the Roy Rogers bandwagon with toys, comic books, lunch boxes and everything else a kid of that generation could hope to want. It was enough to earn the Hollywood actor the casual title of "King of the Coyboys" and Evans "Queen of the West".

821 Entertainment and the Roy Rogers Family Entertainment Corporation think that their names still have enough cache value to attract a sizeable movie audience. The two companies have united to begin work on a slew of Rogers' projects including a proposed movie trilogy, an animated television show, a video game and other merchandising opportunities. Rogers' son, Roy Rogers Jr., is one of the managers involved with the partnership.

Speaking to Variety, 821 Entertainment chairman Eric Geadelmann said that the movies will use Rogers, Evans and Trigger and relaunch them as characters for a new generation "while capitalizing on the millions of Roy Rogers fans worldwide." The show won't necessarily follow the path of a true western adventure and it won't present Rogers as an actor playing a cowboy. Instead, it's being shaped as a "family fantasy adventure"; that sounds like Rogers and his two friends will be fictional characters, a weird meta twist on the old showbiz idea of an actor playing a character.

The question is, have the days of Roy Rogers gone forever into the past? Is there still room for an all-American cowboy character after audiences have experienced the gritty and darker westerns of Clint Eastwood? As with all Hollywood concoctions the Rogers' western pictures will be a gamble -- but maybe ones with longer odds.