The Mask (franchise)

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The Mask
The franchise logo
Created by	Michael Fallon Mark Verheiden
Original work	The Mask (1994)
Owners	Dark Horse Comics Films and TV series: Warner Bros. Entertainment
Years	1994–2005
Based on	The Mask by Mike Richardson and Mark Badger
Films and television
Film(s)	The Mask Son of the Mask (2005)
Animated series	The Mask: Animated Series
Games
Video game(s)	The Mask (1994)

The Mask is an American media franchise based on the comic book series of the same name by Dark Horse Comics. It revolves around a mask that gives various individuals cartoonish and god-like superpowers. The individuals are ultimately faced with the challenge of overcoming the obstacles and conflicts they create while wearing it.

The first film, The Mask, was released in 1994 after six years of development, with a stand-alone sequel, Son of the Mask, released in 2005. An animated series was also produced and ran for three seasons. The first film was widely successful, while the second film was critically panned and a box-office failure.

In 1989, Mike Richardson and Todd Moyer, respectively the founder and Executive Vice President of Dark Horse Comics, first approached New Line Cinema about adapting the comic series The Mask into a film, after having seen other offers. The main character went through several transformations, and the project was stalled a couple of times.^[1]

With New Line Cinema initially intending for The Mask to start a new horror franchise, the company offered the job of directing the film to Charles Russell, known for directing such films.^[2] However, Russell found the violence of the comic to be off-putting, and wanted the film to be less grim and more fun than the source material.^[3]

Unfortunate bank clerk Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) finds a magical mask that transforms him into a mischievous, good-hearted gangster with cartoon-like superpowers.

After Loki (Alan Cumming) is dispatched to Earth to retrieve the Mask, cartoonist Tim Avery (Jamie Kennedy) inadvertently uses it to conceive a child, who inherits its powers.

On the possibility of a direct sequel to the 1994 film with Carrey reprising the role of Stanley Ipkiss and Diaz as Tina Carlyle, Mike Richardson said in a 2014 interview: "We've been talking about reviving The Mask, both in film and in comics. We've had a couple of false starts".^[4] In December 2024, Carrey revealed that he was still interested in portraying the Mask a sequel as long as the idea is good.^[5]

Stanley Ipkiss (voiced by Rob Paulsen) continues to use the magical mask to fight crime and the supervillains as the mischievous, cartoonish, good-hearted superhero known as the "Mask", while having fun and partying at the same time. In this continuity, Stanley still has the mask. He either pretended to throw it away, or Milo retrieved it from the river. As well, in this series, Stanley can use the mask during both day and night, whereas in the film, it only worked at night.

Key

• A ^V indicates the actor or actress lent only his or her voice for his or her film character.

A side-scrolling action game based on the first film was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995.