Jason Blum Confirms The Misfits WILL NOT Be in Jem The Movie

Jason Blum has confirmed in an interview with an Italian movie news site that the Misfits will not be the Jem & The Holograms movie.

Here is our horrible Google translate version of what was said:

"Among his future films will be Jem and the Holograms, directed by Jon M. Chu. It is rumored that the Misfits, historic rivals of Jem, will not be in the movie for a rights issue. It's all right?"

Basically a coming-out journalism. I really wanted to have in the background Cristina d'Avena. I know I'm just a ricchiona (???)  but the world must know.

And this was the response from Blum: "They will not be in the film. Since apparently in Italy everyone knows this series better than me, maybe I'll do a preview of the movie here! No, however there will be but the reason is not related to the rights ".

It's interesting that Jason says the reason the Misfits are not in the movie is not related to the rights. There had been rumors going around that there are still copyright issues with the Misfits due to the real life band of the same name. There's urban legend online the cartoon was forced to remove the Misfits and replace them with the Stingers (which is untrue). However, a copyright and trademark search shows that the real-life band doesn't have the name currently trademarked or copyrighted.

So, why no Misfits?  Here are the possible reasons:

1) Budget - It's a $5 Million dollar movie.  Having the Misfits adds more members to the cast, along with songs that need to be recorded.

2) Limiting the number of characters - When properties with a large number of characters get the movie treatment, there's a trend to limit the number of characters.  GI Joe and Transformers had this sort of treatment and the producers specifically limited the cast to a small group of characters - which they then never developed past being cardboard charitcurles.

3)  The Holograms Are the Mistfits - The leaked pictures of what Jem & the Holograms are wearing look more appropriate for the Misfits than the Holograms - even in the finale big concert.  And Jem costume designer Soyon An talked in a recent interview that the style for them is clearly punk & rock.

This is how Soyon An describes the characters and their styles: "For Jem aka Jerrica, she's indie rock-n-roll, but in a subtle, simple and fashionable way. Aja is totally punk rock and doesn't give a f*ck. Shana is a wannabe fashionista who's willing to try anything trendy and fabulous. Kimber is a girly-girl but in a tomboyish kind of way."

This doesn't sound like the Holograms, this sounds like the Misfits.  
In the original cartoon, Jem & the Holograms were the good girls who followed the typical get-along-gang mentality of 80s cartoon teaching elementary school kids right from wrong.  The Misfits were the baddies who were greedy and self-centered.  Cartoons even had educational consultants to make sure there was messaging to balance out trying to sell toys.

Now, the Jem movie is aimed at preteen girls and likely trying to separate itself from being too Disney.  Our guess is that the Holograms are somewhere in the middle between the Misfits and Holograms.  They won't be the "bad girls" like the Misfits trying to run Jem off the road, but they won't be squeeky clean singing about People Who Care. Their style will be more Misfit-like and they will fit more with the typical preteen rebellion.

The Synergy Conundrum

A lot of speculation and articles have been going around about whether Synergy will or won't be in in the Jem & The Holograms movie.

For the record, Cool Trash has never said that Synergy won't be in the movie.  Our guess is that some form of something similar to Synergy may appear - probably at the very end.

In the initial Hollywood Reporter article about the film, the plot includes "(Jerrica) and her sisters embark on a music-driven scavenger hunt -- one that sends them on an adventure across Los Angeles in an attempt to unlock a final message left by her father".  Hollywood Reporter cites the producers as the source of this plot info.

Many have concluded that the "final message" is related to Synergy.  But it's not much of a plot of a movie if it's resolved in the first 10 minutes, so much of the movie (perhaps nearly all of it) wouldn't involve Synergy if she's what they are searching for. 

Several extras from the filming on May 14/15th have come forward with tidbits of information.  Roxy Tart posted a podcast where she talked about her experiences as an extra and said that what was being filmed was the big finale concert which was the final scene.  Wondermann5 tweeted that there were "No Jem Star earrings".

If it is the final scene, then that would eliminate finding the Jem starearrings in the last act before the finale concert.  There could be an epilogue or scene following the concert or possibly after the credits. However, lack of the Jem star earrings do not necessarily mean that Synergy hasn't been found by that point in the movie.  It could simply suggest that there aren't Jem star earring and Synergy uses other means to transmit holograms.

They could have found the final message from Emmett (or whatever his name is in the movie) and it doesn't include the earrings. Or it the message has absolutely nothing to do with Synergy. 

From just the typical formula used for movie (and nearly all movies are formula driven), finding the message  before the big finale concert would fit - especially for a music focused movie like this. 

Actor Jeffrey King, who claims to have worked on Jem, posted on Instagram "I worked on it... It's not like the cartoon at all. They went more normal with it."

Pretty much what it seems like the Jem movie doing is using the name of characters from the cartoon as elements of the movie - like using "Astral" and "Mrs Bailey".   So, our guess is there will be something called Synergy but may not be anything like what Synergy is in the cartoon.