The Simpsons Movie

The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 animated comedy film based on the animated television series The Simpsons and directed by David Silverman. The film was produced by James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Mike Scully, and Richard Sakai and written by eleven of the television series' most prolific writers: Scully, Jean, Brooks, Groening, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, Ian Maxtone-Graham, and Matt Selman. It stars the regular television cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Pamela Hayden, and Tress MacNeille and features Albert Brooks in a prominent guest role, as well as Tom Hanks and Green Day in smaller ones.

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After previous attempts to create a film version of The Simpsons had failed because of script length and lack of staff, production began in 2001. Numerous plot ideas were conceived by the writers, with Matt Groening's developed into the film. The script was re-written one hundred times, continuing after animation had begun. This meant that "two films' worth" of finished material was cut, including cameos from Isla Fisher, Minnie Driver, Erin Brockovich and Kelsey Grammer. Tie-in promotions were made with 7-Eleven, who transformed select stores into Kwik-E-Marts, and other companies such as Burger King. The film premiered in Springfield, Vermont, which won the right to hold it through a Fox competition.

Plot

Green Day is performing on Lake Springfield, where they fail to engage the audience in talking about the environment. They are killed when the pollution in the lake eats away at their barge, causing it to sink. At the funeral, Grampa has a religious vision, in which he predicts impending doom upon the town, but only Marge pays attention to it. Lisa and Colin, an Irish boy, hold a seminar entitled "An Irritating Truth", where they convince the town to clean up the lake by putting the same polluted water in their glasses. Meanwhile, Homer dares Bart to skateboard nude to Krusty Burger and back, but Bart is caught by Chief Wiggum. Ned Flanders comforts Bart after being humiliated, since Homer lets Bart get blamed for the incident and then adopts a pig. He keeps the pig's waste in an overflowing silo, which horrifies Marge, who tells Homer to dispose of it safely. While waiting at the dump, Homer decides on a quicker means of disposal and dumps the silo into the lake, polluting it severely and mutating a squirrel. Nearby, Flanders and Bart bond during a hike and discover the squirrel, and it is captured by the EPA. Russ Cargill, head of the EPA, tells President Schwarzenegger that Springfield is extremely polluted and the government must take drastic action. Under the President's orders, the EPA places Springfield in a giant glass dome, cutting off the town's supplies from the outside world.

The police discover Homer's silo in the lake, and an angry mob approaches the Simpsons' home, setting it on fire. The family escapes the dome through a sinkhole in Maggie's sandbox and flees to Alaska. Seeing the dome begin to crack and realizing the people of Springfield will escape, Russ Cargill manipulates the President into ordering the town's destruction. In Alaska, the Simpsons see a television advertisement in which Tom Hanks promotes a new Grand Canyon, and Marge realizes that they are planning to bomb Springfield. Marge and the kids decide to save the town, but Homer refuses to help the people that tried to kill him. His family abandons him and returns to rescue Springfield. After a visit with a mysterious Inuit shaman, Homer has a vision and reaches an epiphany: to save himself, his family, and Springfield and he returns. Meanwhile, Marge, Lisa, Maggie, and Bart are captured by Cargill and returned to Springfield. Cargill tells the people of Springfield that the town will be destroyed. A helicopter arrives and lowers a bomb. Meanwhile, Homer climbs the outside of the dome and descends knocking the escaping townspeople and bomb off the rope. However, he notices a motorcycle, grabs Bart, and cycles up the side of the dome. Bart throws the bomb through the hole, detonating it outside and shattering the dome. The town praises Homer, who rides off with Marge on the motorbike into the sunset. The film ends with everyone restoring Springfield, including the Simpsons' home, back to the way things were.

Production

The production staff of The Simpsons had entertained the thought of a film since early in the series, but things never came together. Groening felt a feature length film would allow them to increase the show's scale and animate sequences too complex for a TV series. The season 4 episode "Kamp Krusty" was originally going to be a film, but difficulties were encountered in writing a feature length script, at which point the plans were dropped in favor of a season premiere.For a long time the project was held up. There was trouble finding a story that was right for a film, and the crew did not have enough time to complete such a project, as they already worked full time year-round on the show.Groening also expressed a wish to make Simpstasia, a parody of Fantasia, although it was never produced, partly because it would have been too difficult to write a feature-length script.Before his death, Phil Hartman had wished to make a live action Troy McClure film, and several of the show's staff had expressed a desire to help create it.

The voice cast was finally signed on to do the film in 2001, and work then began on the script. Groening and Brooks invited back Mike Scully and Al Jean (who continued to work as showrunner on the television series) to produce the film with them. They then signed David Silverman, who in anticipation of the project had quit his job at Pixar, to direct. The "strongest possible" writing team was assembled, with many of the writers from the show's early seasons being chosen for the film.David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, George Meyer, John Swartzwelder and Jon Vitti were selected. Ian Maxtone-Graham and Matt Selman joined later, and Brooks, Groening, Scully, and Jean also wrote parts of the script.Sam Simon did not return having left the show over creative differences in 1993, nor did Conan O'Brien, who wanted to work with the Simpsons staff again. O'Brien joked, "Truth be told, I worry that the Simpsons-writing portion of my brain has been destroyed after 14 years of talking to Lindsay Lohan and that guy from One Tree Hill, so maybe it's all for the best."The same went for Brad Bird who "entertained fantasies of asking if [he] could work on the movie," but did not have enough time because of work on Ratatouille.The producers arranged a deal with Fox that meant they could abandon production at any point if "they weren't satisfied with the results."

Work continued on the screenplay from 2003 onwards and did not cease,taking place in the small bungalow where Matt Groening first pitched The Simpsons in 1987. The writers spent six months discussing a plot, and each pitched a "half-assed" idea. Al Jean suggested the family rescue manatees, which became the 2005 episode "Bonfire of the Manatees", and there was The Truman Show-esque notion of the characters discovering their lives were a TV show, which Groening rejected as he felt "that the Simpsons never become aware of themselves as celebrities." Groening read about a town that had to get rid of pig feces in their water supply, which inspired the plot of the film. The decision to have Flanders in an important role also came very early on, as Jean wished to see Bart wonder what his life would be like if Flanders were his father. Having eventually decided on the basic outline for the film, the writers then separated it into seven sections. Jean, Scully, Reiss, Swartzwelder, Vitti, Mirkin, and Meyer wrote twenty five pages each, with the group meeting one month later to merge the seven sections in to one "very rough draft." The writers wrote the script in a way that they almost always employed when writing the television series, sitting around a table and pitching ideas, trying to make each other laugh.The script went through one hundred revisions. Groening described his desire to also make the film dramatically stronger than a TV episode, as "we wanna really give you something that you haven't seen before. There are moments you actually forget that you're watching a cartoon and that is difficult when you have characters as ugly as the Simpsons."

The film was originally planned for release in summer 2006,but Al Jean stated at San Diego's Comic-Con International 2004 that the producers were taking their time, to make sure that the film was perfect.In 2005, Nancy Cartwright told BBC Radio 1 that the cast had done their first table reading,and two more followed.Groening also intended the film to be made after the show ended, "but that intention was undone by good ratings."The producers were initially worried that creating a film would have negative effects on the series, as they did not have enough manpower to focus their attention on both projects. As the series progressed, more writers and animators were hired so that both the show and the film could be produced at the same time.Twentieth Century Fox finally confirmed on April 1, 2006 that The Simpsons Movie would be produced for a worldwide release date on July 27, 2007.To prevent the leaking of spoilers the film's plot was kept a secret,with the script kept under lock-and-key.In tribute to Return of the Jedi's codename "Blue Harvest", the film was dubbed "Yellow Harvest", which was the name that the film was registered under in the United States Copyright Database. Little information on the plot was released in weeks building up to the film's release. Groening noted, "I can't imagine people look in the TV section of the newspaper and think, 'I'll watch this week's Simpsons because I like the plot.' You just tune in and see what happens."

Animation

The film was animated at four different studios around the world: Film Roman in Burbank, California; Rough Draft Studios in Glendale, California; and AKOM and Rough Draft Korea in Seoul, South Korea. Like the television series, the storyboarding, character and background layout, and animatic part of production was done in America, with the overseas studios completing the inbetweening and digital ink and paint process.In addition to Silverman's directing, sequence directors Mike B. Anderson, Lauren MacMullan, Rich Moore, and Steven Dean Moore each directed roughly a quarter of the film.Gregg Vanzo directed the 3D sequences.

ning rejected making either a live action or a CGI film,describing the film's animation as being "deliberately imperfect", and "a tribute to the art of hand-drawn animation, which is basically disappearing."The film was animated in a wider 2.39:1 aspect ratio than the television series, and colored with the largest palette the animators ever had available to them.David Silverman said that unlike the TV series where "you've got to pick and choose," the film allowed the opportunity to "lavish that attention with every single scene that we do," also noting that the characters have shadows. Silverman and the animators looked to The Incredibles, Triplets of Belleville, and Bad Day at Black Rock for inspiration as they were "a great education in staging because of how the characters are placed".They also looked at Dumbo and the Pluto cartoon Pluto's Judgement Day for a dream sequence,and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World for crowd scenes. Silverman also looked at some of the episodes he had directed, primarily his two favorites "Homie the Clown" and "Three Men and a Comic Book".

Although most animated films cannot make any changes to the story for budget reasons,The Simpsons Movie crew continued to keep playing with their film even into 2007. James L. Brooks noted, "We saw a trailer the other day, and somebody said 70 percent of the things in it - based on where we were eight weeks ago - are no longer in the movie, because we keep on fooling around."Various new characters were created, who were cut as they didn't contribute much.Further changes were made after a March 2007 preview screening of the film in Portland, Oregon, including the deletion of Kang and Kodos heavily criticizing the film during the end credits. Russ Cargill's scene with Bart and Homer at the film's conclusion was added in, and Colin's appearance was changed completely, as well as his name, with previous names being Dexter and Adrien. The "Spider-Pig" gag was a late addition, and one scene excised had Homer running away with a barbecue rod impaled in him. Other deletions included Homer's encounter with a "sausage man", and a scene with Plopper at the end. The Fox advertisement scroll bar was also changed several times, with previously listed reality shows including Ship of Skanks.Several jokes referencing events of the episodes were added, including the wreckage of the ambulance crashed into a tree next to Springfield Gorge from the episode "Bart the Daredevil".A large amount of material, which Groening described as being "probably enough for two more movies," will be included on the film's DVD release. Several elements of the film, including Plopper and Colin, will be permanently transferred across to the television series.

Casting

As inspiration for the crowd scene in the film, the production staff spent a long time looking at the Simpsons poster that features over 320 of the show's characters.Groening said that they did try to put every single character into the film, with 98 having speaking parts.The series regulars Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer, and semi-regular performers Marcia Wallace, Pamela Hayden, and Tress MacNeille reprised their roles.Joe Mantegna returned as Fat Tony,while Albert Brooks, who supplied many guest voices in episodes, was hired as Russ Cargill, the film's antagonist.Brooks told the staff that if they were doing a film, he would like to be part of it, and was brought in. The cast began recording every week from June 2006 onwards,with James L. Brooks directing them for the first time since the television show's early seasons. Castellaneta described the recording sessions as "much more intense" than recording the television series, with them participating in "20 or more" sessions, and more emotionally dramatic than the TV series. Some scenes, such as Marge's video message to Homer, were recorded over one hundred times, leaving the voice cast exhausted.

Green Day played themselves in the film.When the scene was being written the band was not specified, but the staff received a letter saying that Green Day wanted to guest star in The Simpsons, and they were given the part. Tom Hanks also appears as himself in the film, he accepted the offer after just one phone call. Minnie Driver recorded the part of a patronizing grievance counselor in a scene that ended up being cut.Driver found recording her part "the funniest afternoon of her career",and was saddened when she was told it was cut.Isla Fisher and Erin Brockovich also recorded cameos, but they were cut as well.Kelsey Grammer recorded lines for Sideshow Bob, but he did not appear either.

Although he does not provide the voice, Arnold Schwarzenegger is President of the United States in the film. He was chosen ahead of the incumbent President George W. Bush because "in two years that'd mean the film [would be] out of date."This idea was met with nervousness, as Brooks noted "[Schwarzenegger's] opinion polls were way down, so we were sweating whether he'd make a political comeback, so it was great when he did."The animators began by drawing an accurate caricature of Schwarzenegger,but one of the staff suggested that an altered version of the recurring character Rainier Wolfcastle, himself a caricature of Schwarzenegger, could act as President.This idea was developed, with the design of Wolfcastle being edited to have more wrinkles under his eyes and a different hairstyle.

Music

Hans Zimmer was selected to compose the score for the film, with him composing for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End at the same time. He told The Hollywood Reporter that he liked "using all his creative juices at once."Brooks chose Zimmer, as the pair were good friends and had worked together on Brooks' previous films. Zimmer expressed that the score was a "unique challenge", stating "I had to try and express the style of The Simpsons without wearing the audience out with too much attitude."He used "tiny fragments" of Danny Elfman's original opening theme, to coincide with his original music, and gave each of the main characters their own themes.In addition to their appearance in the film, Green Day recorded their own version of the theme song of The Simpsons, releasing it as a single.The Green Day theme peaked at number 19 in the UK Singles Chart, while Hans Zimmer's "Spider Pig" reached number 24, having risen eighty-two places from the previous week.

Marketing

A teaser trailer for the film was attached to the film Ice Age: The Meltdown from March 31, 2006 onwards; the same trailer was then broadcast during the April 2, 2006 episode of The Simpsons, "Million Dollar Abie". A 1½-minute-long trailer was then shown on November 12, 2006, immediately after the second act of The Simpsons episode "G.I. (Annoyed Grunt)".Another 1½-minute trailer appeared on The Sun newspaper's website on December 11, 2006.The next trailer was shown during The Simpsons episode "Springfield Up" on February 18, 2007, and was made available online shortly afterwards.The final theatrical trailer was released through Yahoo! Movies on June 21, 2007. In addition, two clips were shown to audiences during a The Simpsons panel at Comic-Con 2006,and another animatic was included on The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season DVD boxset.

McFarlane Toys released a line of action figures based on the film, including Ned Flanders and Bart looking over a rock at the mutated squirrel they find at Lake Springfield. Others include Bart skateboarding naked around Sherri and Terri, Homer with Plopper, and Itchy & Scratchy in "Presidential Politics". Also a series of "movie mayhem" figures, depicting the family in a movie theater, were released. A video game entitled The Simpsons Game has been announced by EA Games, and it will be released to coincide with the film's DVD release in the fall.

Eleven 7-Eleven stores in the United States and one in Canada were transformed into Kwik-E-Marts.These twelve stores, as well as the majority of other North American 7-Elevens will sell "Squishees" (Slurpees in collectors cups), "Buzz Cola", "Krusty-O's" Cereal, "Pink Movie Donuts", and other Simpsons-themed merchandise.The promotion resulted in a 30% increase in profits for the altered 7-Eleven stores.In Dorset an image of Homer was painted next to the Cerne Abbas giant, causing outrage amongst local Pagans who performed "rain magic" to see it be washed away.Homer himself later performed a special animated opening monologue for the July 24, 2007 edition of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, as part of another promotion.

Samsung released a Simpsons Movie phone,and Microsoft released a limited edition Simpsons Movie Xbox 360.Ben & Jerry's released a The Simpsons themed beer and donut flavored ice-cream, entitled "Duff & D'oh-Nuts".Other merchandise included a The Simpsons Movie coffee mug and a donut-shaped stress reliever, as well as a badge pack. Online users were presented with the opportunity to download free animated and static content for use within their Windows Live Messenger conversations.Burger King, JetBlue Airways, and Vans also have tie-in deals to promote the film.Burger King produced a line of The Simpsons toy figures that were given away with children's meals, and ran a series of Simpsons themed television adverts.JetBlue held a series of online sweepstakes with the top prize being a trip to the film's Los Angeles premiere; also, their plane's inflight entertainment system included a channel dedicated to The Simpsons.Promotions occurred around the world, including the village of Springfield in Canterbury, New Zealand who were awarded a "giant pink donut" for being named Springfield

Release

The film is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for "irreverent humor throughout".The rating had been expected by the production staff.However, the British Board of Film Classification passed the film as a PG with no cuts made.A BBFC spokeswoman said of Bart's very brief nude scene that "natural nudity with no sexual content is acceptable in PG films."The film was released in most territories on July 27, 2007, and in Australia on July 26.The British release was initially moved a day forward to July 26,only to then be moved a further day to July 25.

Fox held a competition between sixteen Springfields across the United States to host the American premiere,with Springfield, Minnesota dropping out on May 31, 2007.Each Springfield produced a film, explaining why their town should host the premiere, with the results being decided via a vote on the USA Today website.The winner was announced to be Springfield, Vermont on July 10, which hosted the "yellow carpet" world premiere of the film on July 21.Each of the other fourteen entrants held their own smaller screenings of the film on July 26.

Before its release, the film received a nomination in the category "Best Summer Movie You Haven't Seen Yet" at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards, but it lost to Transformers.The film's trailer won a Golden Trailer Award in the category "Best Animated/Family Film Trailer" at the 8th Annual Golden Trailer Awards.

A sneak peek of the film's DVD was included on The Simpsons The Complete Tenth Season DVD boxset. It included an unfinished deleted scene of the townspeople singing the Springfield Anthem.

The film took $30.7 million on its opening day in the United States, the sixteenth highest grossing opening day, and third highest non-sequel opening.It grossed a combined total of $74 million in its opening weekend, taking it to the top of the box office,and making it the fifth highest opening weekend for a July release ever, and highest July opening for a non-sequel,thus outperforming the expectation of $40 million that Fox had for the release.It set several American box office records, including the record for highest grossing opening weekend for a non-CG animated film, surpassing The Lion King; the record for highest grossing opening weekend for a film based on a television series, surpassing Mission Impossible II; and overall it had the third highest grossing opening weekend for an animated film, behind Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third.It opened at the top of the international box office taking $96 million from seventy-one overseas territories, including $27.8 million in the United Kingdom, Fox's second highest opening ever in the country.It helped break the record for the highest weekend attendance to British cinemas, as 5.5 million people went to see a film that weekend, with 2.6 million seeing The Simpsons Movie.In Australia, it grossed AU$13.2 million, the biggest opening for an animated film and third largest opening weekend in the country.As of August 22, 2007 the film has a worldwide gross of $438.4 million.

Critical Reaction

The film garnered a 89% "Certified Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes,and a rating of 80 out of 100 (signifying "generally favorable reviews") at Metacritic.Both The Guardian and The Times gave the film four out of five stars. The Times' James Bone commented, "the film boasts the same sly cultural references and flashes of brilliance that have earned the television series a following that ranges from tots to comparative literature PhDs,"while The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw stated that "The Simpsons Movie gives you everything you could possibly want, and maybe it's a victim of its own gargantuan accomplishment. Eighty-five minutes is not long enough to do justice to 17 years of comedy genius. It's still great stuff."Ed Gonzalez praised the film's political message, likening the Itchy & Scratchy cartoon at the beginning to President Schwarzenegger's situation later on, as well as praising the film's many sight gags.Randy Shulman gave strong praise of the cast who he described as having "elevated their vocal work to a craft that goes way beyond simple line readings," particularly Kavner who "gave what must be the most heartfelt performance ever to find its way into a movie based on an irreverent cartoon".Roger Ebert although "not generally a fan of movies spun off from TV animation", gave a positive review calling it a "radical and simple at the same time, subversive and good-hearted, offensive without really meaning to be."Richard Corliss of Time decided that the film "was worth waiting for" as "it doesn't try to be ruder or kinkier, just bigger and better."

USA Today film critic Claudia Puig found that the film "does warrant a full-length feature, thanks to a clever plot and non-stop irreverent humor", but stated that some fans may "miss seeing their favorite characters, a few regulars are pared down, and others don't show up at all."Patrick Kolan found that the film was "easily the best stuff to come from the house of Simpson since season 12 or 13" and praised the animation, but commented on the "small and unfunny" appearances of characters such as Comic Book Guy and Seymour Skinner.Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film's good nature, stating the laughs "come in all sizes", although noting that "little has been gained bringing the Simpsons to the screen."Variety's Brian Lowry called it "clever, irreverent, satirical and outfitted" and that it was "just barely" capable of sustaining a longer plot than a television episode.Lisa Schwarzbaum praised the voice cast but noted that the "action sequences sometimes falter."

Empire reviewer Ian Nathan gave the film two stars, comparing it to New Coke as "it utterly failed."Phil Villarreal noted that there are "too few laugh-worthy moments" and that "instead of stretching to new frontiers, the film rests on the familiar."Sheila Johnston of The Telegraph found that "the overall momentum flags at times" as the film overstretches itself, being "a salvo of comic squibs, some very funny, others limp,"whilst David Edwards wrote that "there's a great half-hour show rattling around in here somewhere, but the rest is padding at its very dullest".Cosmo Landesman stated that "the humour seems to have lost its satirical bite and wit" and that "much of the comedy is structured around the idiocy of Homer, which is a shame".Bruce Newman criticized the fleeting appearances of many of the show's secondary characters, finding the film "[not] a disaster, just a disappointment."