Jim Carrey is reportedly in talks to star in a live-action Jetsons movie, directed by Jurassic World: Dominion‘s Colin Trevorrow, according to Variety. If Carrey does take on the role, he’ll have some very big (space) shoes to fill — not just because George Jetson is one of the most famous animated characters of all time, but because the Jetson family’s last foray to the big screen did not go all that well. In fact, the 1990 film Jetsons: The Movie was so critically savaged that no new media featuring the futuristic family was released for more than 25 years afterwards.

One of the early Hanna-Barbera series, The Jetsons first aired in 1962, the space-dwelling counterpart to the animation studio’s ultra-popular Flintstones. Though the original series ran for only one season in primetime, it found a second life as a Saturday morning rerun. The reruns picked up steam throughout the ’70s and ’80s, resulting in two brand-new seasons of the show produced in 1985 and 1987. The new seasons — plus the success of 1987’s made-for-TV crossover The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones — it seemed like the time was right to take the Jetsons to the big screen.

However, the film was immediately beset by problems — beginning with the fact that all the core vocal actors were over 60 years old, and struggling with health issues. Daws Butler, who voiced Elroy, died shortly before filming began. Voice acting legend Mel Blanc, who played Mr. Spacely on the original show, died during the film’s production. George O’Hanlon, who voiced George Jetson, was in such precarious health that he could only record lines for an hour at a time, and suffered a stroke while in the recording booth; he died hours after recording his final lines for the film. It was also the final film directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who died in 2001 and 2006, respectively.

In search of a star who would appeal to a more youthful demographic, producers decided to replace Janet Waldo, the original Judy Jetson, after she had recorded all her dialogue — a situation that led voice acting director Andrea Romano to attempt to have her name removed from the final film. Waldo was replaced with pop star Tiffany, who’d had a #1 hit in 1987 with a cover of Tommy James and the Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now.” Additionally, Brad Garrett voiced Bertie Furbelow, six years before he’d become a household name on Everybody Loves Raymond.

Originally scheduled to be released in December 1989, Jetsons: The Movie finally came out in July 1990, earning $20 million on a budget of $8 million — not too shabby, until you realize that the film racked up $12 million in marketing costs, due to an advertising blitz that includes Wendy’s tie-in meals, a Kool-Aid promotion, and a breakfast cereal.

The film was also savaged by critics: The New York Times proclaimed that the main thing separating the movie from the show that inspired it was that it was “longer,” while Roger Ebert called it one of the top 10 worst movies of 1990 — an honor shared with films like Ghost Dad and Prince’s Graffiti Bridge — saying that it showed “no imagination whatsoever.” 

The chaos off-screen and lackluster results at the box office were enough to put the Jetson family to rest for 27 years — they didn’t reappear in a new major film or series until 2017’s The Jetsons & WWE: Robo-WrestleMania!, a collaboration with WWE.