The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 American
animatedAnimation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
comedy filmComedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
based on the animated television series
The SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
. The film was directed by
David SilvermanDavid Silverman is an animator best known for directing numerous episodes of the animated TV series The Simpsons, as well as The Simpsons Movie...
, and stars the regular television cast of
Dan CastellanetaDaniel Louis "Dan" Castellaneta is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, singer and screenwriter. Noted for his long-running role as Homer Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons, he voices many other characters on The Simpsons, including Abraham "Grampa" Simpson, Barney Gumble,...
,
Julie KavnerJulie Deborah Kavner is an American film and television actress, comedian and voice artist. Noted for her role as Marge Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons, she also voices other characters for the show, including Jacqueline Bouvier, and Patty and Selma Bouvier.Born in Los...
,
Nancy CartwrightNancy Campbell Cartwright is an American film and television actress, comedian and voice artist. She is best known for her long-running role as Bart Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons...
,
Yeardley SmithYeardley Smith is a French-born American actress, voice actress, writer and painter. She is best known for her long-running role as Lisa Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons....
,
Hank AzariaHenry Albert "Hank" Azaria is an American film, television and stage actor, director, voice actor, and comedian. He is noted for being one of the principal voice actors on the animated television series The Simpsons , on which he performs the voices of Moe Szyslak, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Chief...
,
Harry ShearerHarry Julius Shearer is an American actor, comedian, writer, voice artist, musician, author, radio host and director. He is known for his long-running role on The Simpsons, his work on Saturday Night Live, the comedy band Spinal Tap and his radio program Le Show...
,
Tress MacNeilleTress MacNeille is an American voice actress best known for providing various voices on the animated series The Simpsons, Futurama, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Disney's House of Mouse, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Rugrats, All Grown Up!, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, and Dave the...
, and
Pamela HaydenPamela Hayden is an American actress, best known for providing various voices for the animated television show The Simpsons.-Biography:...
. It features
Albert BrooksAlbert Lawrence Brooks is an American actor, voice actor, writer, comedian and director. He received an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for his role in Broadcast News...
as Russ Cargill, the evil head of the
Environmental Protection AgencyThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...
who intends to destroy
SpringfieldSpringfield is the fictional town in which the American animated sitcom The Simpsons is set. A mid-sized town in an undetermined state of the United States, Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society. The geography of the town and its...
after
HomerHomer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
pollutes the lake. As the townspeople exile him and eventually his
familyThe Simpson family is a family of fictional characters featured in the animated television series The Simpsons. The Simpsons are a nuclear family consisting of the married couple Homer and Marge and their three children Bart, Lisa and Maggie. They live at 742 Evergreen Terrace in the fictional town...
abandon him, Homer works to redeem his folly by stopping Cargill's scheme.
Previous attempts to create a film version of
The Simpsons failed due to the lack of a script of appropriate length and production crew members. Eventually, producers
James L. BrooksJames Lawrence Brooks is an American director, producer and screenwriter. Growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life and passed the time by reading and writing. After dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the...
,
Matt GroeningMatthew Abram "Matt" Groening is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama....
,
Al JeanAl Jean is an award-winning American screenwriter and producer, best known for his work on The Simpsons. He was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and graduated from Harvard University in 1981. Jean began his writing career in the 1980s with fellow Harvard alum Mike Reiss...
,
Mike ScullyMike Scully is an American television writer and producer. He is known for his work as executive producer and showrunner of the animated sitcom The Simpsons from 1997 to 2001. Scully grew up in West Springfield, Massachusetts and long had an interest in writing. He was an underachiever at school...
, and
Richard SakaiRichard Sakai is an American producer best known for partnering with James L. Brooks and for his work on The Simpsons....
began development of the film in 2001. A writing team consisting of Scully, Jean, Brooks, Groening,
George MeyerGeorge A. Meyer is an American producer and writer. Raised in Tucson, Arizona in a Roman Catholic family, Meyer attended Harvard University. There, after becoming president of the Harvard Lampoon, he graduated in 1978 with a degree in biochemistry. Abandoning plans to attend medical school, Meyer...
,
David MirkinDavid Mirkin is an American feature film and television director, writer and producer. Mirkin grew up in Philadelphia and intended to become an electrical engineer, but abandoned this career path in favor of studying film at Loyola Marymount University. After graduating, he became a stand-up...
,
Mike ReissMichael "Mike" Reiss is an American television comedy writer. He served as a show-runner, writer and producer for the animated series The Simpsons and co-created the animated series The Critic...
,
John SwartzwelderJohn Swartzwelder is an American comedy writer and novelist, best known for his work on the animated television series The Simpsons, as well as a number of novels. He is credited with writing the largest number of Simpsons episodes by a large margin...
,
Jon VittiJon Vitti is an American writer best known for his work on the television series The Simpsons. He has also written for the King of the Hill and The Critic series, and has served as a consultant for several animated movies, including Ice Age and Robots...
,
Ian Maxtone-GrahamIan Maxtone-Graham is an American television writer and producer. He has written for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons , and has also served as a co-executive producer and consulting producer for The Simpsons...
, and
Matt SelmanMatthew "Matt" Selman is an American writer and producer. Selman grew up in Massachusetts, attended the University of Pennsylvania and was editor-in-chief of student magazine 34th Street Magazine. After considering a career in journalism, he decided to try and became a television writer...
was assembled. They conceived numerous plot ideas, with Groening's being the one developed into a film. The script was re-written over a hundred times, and this creativity continued after animation had begun in 2006. This meant hours of finished material was cut, which included
cameo rolesA cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
from
Erin BrockovichErin Brockovich-Ellis is an American legal clerk and environmental activist who, despite the lack of a formal law school education, or any legal education, was instrumental in constructing a case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company of California in 1993...
,
Minnie DriverMinnie Driver is an English actress and singer-songwriter. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting, as well as for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for her work in the television series The Riches.- Early life...
,
Isla FisherIsla Lang Fisher is an actress and author. She began acting on Australian television, on the short-lived soap opera Paradise Beach before playing Shannon Reed on the soap opera Home and Away...
,
Kelsey GrammerAllen Kelsey Grammer is an American actor and comedian. He is most widely known for his two-decade portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the sitcoms Cheers and Frasier...
, and
Edward NortonEdward Harrison Norton is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and producer. In 1996, his supporting role in the courtroom drama Primal Fear garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor...
.
Tom HanksThomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
and
Green DayGreen Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
appeared in the final cut as themselves.
Tie-in promotions were made with several companies, including
Burger KingBurger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
and
7-Eleven7-Eleven is part of an international chain of convenience stores, operating under Seven-Eleven Japan Co. Ltd, which in turn is owned by Seven & I Holdings Co...
, which transformed selected stores into
Kwik-E-MartThe Kwik-E-Mart is a fictional chain of convenience stores in the animated television series The Simpsons. It is a parody of American convenience store chains, such as 7-Eleven and Circle K, and represents many myths and stereotypes of them. It is notorious for its high prices and the poor quality...
s. The film premiered in
Springfield, VermontSpringfield is a town in Windsor County, Vermont, United States. The population was 9,373 at the 2010 census.-History:One of the New Hampshire grants, the township was chartered on August 20, 1761 by Governor Benning Wentworth and awarded to Gideon Lyman and 61 others...
, which had won the right to hold it through a competition organized by
FoxFox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
. The film was a box office success, as it grossed over $527 million and received positive reviews.
Plot
While performing on Lake
SpringfieldSpringfield is the fictional town in which the American animated sitcom The Simpsons is set. A mid-sized town in an undetermined state of the United States, Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society. The geography of the town and its...
,
rockRock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band
Green DayGreen Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
are killed when pollution in the lake dissolves their barge, following an audience revolt after frontman
Billie Joe ArmstrongBillie Joe Armstrong is an American rock musician and occasional actor, best known as the lead vocalist, main songwriter and lead guitarist for the American punk rock band Green Day...
proposes an environmental discussion. At a memorial service,
GrampaAbraham J. "Abe" Simpson, often known simply as Grampa, is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and he is also the patriarch of the Simpson family, the father of Homer Simpson, and the grandfather of Bart, Lisa, and Maggie Simpson...
has a
propheticProphecy is a process in which one or more messages that have been communicated to a prophet are then communicated to others. Such messages typically involve divine inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of conditioned events to come as well as testimonies or repeated revelations that the...
vision in which he predicts the impending doom of the town, but only
MargeMarjorie "Marge" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the eponymous family. She is voiced by actress Julie Kavner and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
takes it seriously. Then
HomerHomer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
dares
BartBartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
to skate naked and he does so.
LisaLisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening...
and an Irish boy named Colin, with whom she has fallen in love, hold a meeting where they convince the town to clean up the lake.
Meanwhile,
HomerHomer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
adopts a
pigA pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...
from Krusty Burger and names it "Spider Pig" (later "Plopper"). Homer seems to show more love for the pig than he does for Bart which causes Bart to reconnect with
FlandersNedward "Ned" Flanders, Jr. is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer, and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". He is the next door neighbor to the Simpson family and is generally...
. Homer stores the pig's
fecesFeces, faeces, or fæces is a waste product from an animal's digestive tract expelled through the anus or cloaca during defecation.-Etymology:...
(and some of his own) in an overflowing
siloA silo is a structure for storing bulk materials.Silo may also refer to:* Silo , a 3D modeling software* Silo , a defunct chain of retail electronics stores* SILO , used in Linux...
which Marge tells him to dispose of safely. Homer takes the silo and Plopper to the dump to get rid of the waste, but during a line-up of safe trash disposal, he receives a phone call from Lenny, who tells him that Lard Lad Donuts has been shut down and free donuts are being given out. Homer grows impatient and instead dumps the silo in the lake, re-polluting it to an even more severe degree. Moments later, a
chipmunkChipmunks are small striped squirrels native to North America and Asia. They are usually classed either as a single genus with three subgenera, or as three genera.-Etymology and taxonomy:...
jumps into the lake and becomes severely mutated. Nearby, Flanders and Bart discover the chipmunk during a hike, and the
EPAThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...
captures it. Russ Cargill, head of the EPA, presents five "unthinkable" options to
U.S. PresidentThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
SchwarzeneggerArnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
to keep the town's pollution contained; Schwarzenegger randomly picks option three, enclosing Springfield in a
large glass domeA domed city is a kind of theoretical or fictional structure that encloses a large urban area under a single roof. In most descriptions, the dome is airtight and pressurized, creating a habitat that can be controlled for air temperature and quality...
. When the police discover Homer's silo in the lake, an angry mob of townspeople approach the Simpsons' home with
pitchforkA pitchfork is an agricultural tool with a long handle and long, thin, widely separated pointed tines used to lift and pitch loose material, such as hay, leaves, grapes, dung or other agricultural materials. Pitchforks typically have two or three tines...
s and
torchA torch is a fire source, usually a rod-shaped piece of wood with a rag soaked in pitch and/or some other flammable material wrapped around one end. Torches were often supported in sconces by brackets high up on walls, to throw light over corridors in stone structures such as castles or crypts...
es and attempt to kill them, but the family escape through a
sinkholeA sinkhole, also known as a sink, shake hole, swallow hole, swallet, doline or cenote, is a natural depression or hole in the Earth's surface caused by karst processes — the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks or suffosion processes for example in sandstone...
that leads to the outside of the dome. They find a room to stay in for the night and Homer tells them that he has a plan; flee to
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
to start a new life.
The trapped citizens damage the dome over time and Cargill, not wanting news of what he has done to become widespread, plans to destroy Springfield. In Alaska, the Simpsons see an advertisement starring
Tom HanksThomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
, for a new
Grand CanyonThe Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, the 15th national park in the United States...
to be located on the site where Springfield is located. Marge and the kids want to go and save the town, but Homer refuses to help the people who tried to kill them. The family abandon Homer and leave, but are captured by the EPA and then put back into the dome.
After a visit from a mysterious
Inuit shamanInuit mythology has many similarities to the religions of other polar regions. Inuit traditional religious practices could be very briefly summarised as a form of shamanism based on animist principles....
who saves him from a
polar bearThe polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...
, Homer has an
epiphanyAn epiphany is the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something...
and believes he must save the town in order to save himself. As he arrives at Springfield to do so, a helicopter lowers a bomb suspended by rope through a hole in the dome. Homer climbs to the peak of the dome and descends the rope, knocking the escaping townspeople and bomb off. Homer takes the bomb and a motorcycle. After reuniting with Bart, they drive up the side of the dome and Bart throws the bomb through the hole, seconds before detonation. The bomb explodes, shattering the dome, freeing everybody. Cargill, angry for ruining his plan, arrives and is about to shoot Homer with a shotgun, but gets knocked out when
MaggieMargaret "Maggie" Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She first appeared on television in the Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Maggie was created and designed by cartoonist Matt Groening while he was waiting in the lobby of James...
drops a rock on his head. The town finally praises Homer, who kisses Marge on the motorcycle before riding off into the sunrise with her and Maggie. The townspeople begin restoring Springfield back to normal.
Development
The production staff had considered a film adaptation of
The Simpsons since early in the series. The show's creator,
Matt GroeningMatthew Abram "Matt" Groening is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama....
, felt a feature length film would allow them to increase the show's scale and animate sequences too complex for a TV series. He intended the film to be made after the show ended, "but that [...] was undone by good ratings". There were attempts to adapt the
fourth seasonThe Simpsons fourth season originally aired on the Fox network between September 24, 1992 and May 13, 1993, beginning with "Kamp Krusty." The show runners for the fourth production season were Al Jean and Mike Reiss. The aired season contained two episodes which were hold-over episodes from season...
episode "
Kamp Krusty"Kamp Krusty" is the first episode of The Simpsons fourth season, which originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on September 24, 1992. During summer vacation, the children of Springfield attend Kamp Krusty, a summer camp named after Krusty the Clown. The camp is extremely...
" into a film, but difficulties were encountered in expanding the episode to feature-length. For a long time the project was held up. There was difficulty finding a story that was sufficient for a film, and the crew did not have enough time to complete such a project, as they already worked full time on the show. Groening also expressed a wish to make
Simpstasia, a parody of
FantasiaFantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...
; it was never produced, partly because it would have been too difficult to write a feature-length script. Before his death,
Phil HartmanPhilip Edward "Phil" Hartman was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic artist. Born in Brantford, Ontario, Hartman and his family moved to the United States when he was 10...
had said he had wished to make a live action
Troy McClureTroy McClure is a fictional character in the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. He was voiced by Phil Hartman and first appears in the second season episode "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment". McClure is a washed-up actor, usually shown doing low-level work, such as hosting infomercials...
film, and several of the show's staff had expressed a desire to help create it.
| "If every episode of The Simpsons is a celebration, which we try to make it, then the movie is like a big celebration. It's a way of honoring the animators, allowing them to really strut their stuff and really go as far as they can with the art of the handwritten gesture. It's a way of honoring the writers, because we were able to get the best all-star writers of The Simpsons and write our hearts out, and it's a way of honoring all the great actors." |
| — Matt Groening |
The voice cast was signed on to do the film in 2001, and work then began on the script. The producers were initially worried that creating a film would have a negative effect on the series, as they did not have enough crew to focus their attention on both projects. As the series progressed, additional writers and animators were hired so that both the show and the film could be produced at the same time. Groening and
James L. BrooksJames Lawrence Brooks is an American director, producer and screenwriter. Growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life and passed the time by reading and writing. After dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the...
invited back
Mike ScullyMike Scully is an American television writer and producer. He is known for his work as executive producer and showrunner of the animated sitcom The Simpsons from 1997 to 2001. Scully grew up in West Springfield, Massachusetts and long had an interest in writing. He was an underachiever at school...
and
Al JeanAl Jean is an award-winning American screenwriter and producer, best known for his work on The Simpsons. He was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and graduated from Harvard University in 1981. Jean began his writing career in the 1980s with fellow Harvard alum Mike Reiss...
(who continued to work as
showrunnerShowrunner is a term of art originating in the United States and Canadian television industry referring to the person who is responsible for the day-to-day operation of a television seriesalthough such persons generally are credited as an executive producer...
on the television series) to produce the film with them. They then signed
David SilvermanDavid Silverman is an animator best known for directing numerous episodes of the animated TV series The Simpsons, as well as The Simpsons Movie...
(who, in anticipation of the project, had quit his job at
PixarPixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
) to direct the film. The "strongest possible" writing team was assembled, with many of the writers from the show's early seasons being chosen.
David MirkinDavid Mirkin is an American feature film and television director, writer and producer. Mirkin grew up in Philadelphia and intended to become an electrical engineer, but abandoned this career path in favor of studying film at Loyola Marymount University. After graduating, he became a stand-up...
,
Mike ReissMichael "Mike" Reiss is an American television comedy writer. He served as a show-runner, writer and producer for the animated series The Simpsons and co-created the animated series The Critic...
,
George MeyerGeorge A. Meyer is an American producer and writer. Raised in Tucson, Arizona in a Roman Catholic family, Meyer attended Harvard University. There, after becoming president of the Harvard Lampoon, he graduated in 1978 with a degree in biochemistry. Abandoning plans to attend medical school, Meyer...
,
John SwartzwelderJohn Swartzwelder is an American comedy writer and novelist, best known for his work on the animated television series The Simpsons, as well as a number of novels. He is credited with writing the largest number of Simpsons episodes by a large margin...
, and
Jon VittiJon Vitti is an American writer best known for his work on the television series The Simpsons. He has also written for the King of the Hill and The Critic series, and has served as a consultant for several animated movies, including Ice Age and Robots...
were selected.
Ian Maxtone-GrahamIan Maxtone-Graham is an American television writer and producer. He has written for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons , and has also served as a co-executive producer and consulting producer for The Simpsons...
and
Matt SelmanMatthew "Matt" Selman is an American writer and producer. Selman grew up in Massachusetts, attended the University of Pennsylvania and was editor-in-chief of student magazine 34th Street Magazine. After considering a career in journalism, he decided to try and became a television writer...
joined later, and Brooks, Groening, Scully, and Jean also wrote parts of the script.
Sam SimonSamuel "Sam" Simon is an American director, producer, writer, boxing manager and philanthropist. While at Stanford University, Simon worked as a newspaper cartoonist and after graduating became a storyboard artist at Filmation Studios. He submitted a spec script for the sitcom Taxi, which was...
did not return having left the show over creative differences in 1993. Former writer
Conan O'BrienConan Christopher O'Brien is an American television host, comedian, writer, producer and performer. Since November 2010 he has hosted Conan, a late-night talk show that airs on the American cable television station TBS....
wanted to work with the
Simpsons staff again, joking that "I worry that the
Simpsons-writing portion of my brain has been destroyed after 14 years of talking to
Lindsay LohanLindsay Lohan is an American actress, pop singer and model. She began her career as a child fashion model before making her motion picture debut in Disney's 1998 remake of The Parent Trap at the age of 11...
and that guy from
One Tree HillOne Tree Hill is an American television drama created by Mark Schwahn, which premiered on September 23, 2003, on The WB Television Network. After its third season, The WB merged with UPN to form The CW Television Network, and, since September 27, 2006, the network has been the official broadcaster...
, so maybe it's all for the best." The same went for director
Brad BirdPhillip Bradley "Brad" Bird is an Academy Award-winning American director, voice actor, animator and screenwriter. He is best known for writing and directing Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles and Ratatouille . He also adapted and directed the critically acclaimed 2D animated 1999 Warner Brothers...
who said he had "entertained fantasies of asking if [he] could work on the movie", but did not have enough time due to work on
RatatouilleRatatouille is a 2007 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the eighth film produced by Pixar, and was directed by Brad Bird, who took over from Jan Pinkava in 2005...
. The producers arranged a deal with Fox that would allow them to abandon production of the film at any point if they felt the script was unsatisfactory.
Work continued on the screenplay from 2003 onwards, taking place in the small bungalow where Groening first pitched
The Simpsons in 1987. The writers spent six months discussing a plot, and each of them offered sketchy ideas. Jean suggested the family rescue
manateeManatees are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows...
s, which became the 2005 episode "
Bonfire of the Manatees"Bonfire of the Manatees" is the first episode of The Simpsons seventeenth season. It originally aired on September 11, 2005, making it the first Simpsons season premiere to air in September — since the eleventh season opened with "Beyond Blunderdome" on September 26, 1999...
", and there was also a notion similar to that of
The Truman ShowThe Truman Show is a 1998 American satirical comedy-drama film directed by Peter Weir and written by Andrew Niccol. The cast includes Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, as well as Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Ed Harris and Natascha McElhone...
where the characters discovered their lives were a TV show. Groening rejected this, as he felt that the Simpsons should "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 for
FlandersNedward "Ned" Flanders, Jr. is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer, and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". He is the next door neighbor to the Simpson family and is generally...
to have an important role also came 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 of the plot for the film, the writers then separated it into seven sections. Jean, Scully, Reiss, Swartzwelder, Vitti, Mirkin, and Meyer wrote 25 pages each, and the group met one month later to merge the seven sections into one "very rough draft". The film's script was written in the same way as the television series: the writers sitting around a table, pitching ideas, and trying to make each other laugh. The script went through over 100 revisions, and at one point the film was a musical. However, the songs were continually being shortened and the idea was dropped. Groening described his desire to also make the film dramatically stronger than a TV episode, saying that he wanted to "give you something that you haven't seen before".
Animation
Animation for the film began in January 2006, with the
Itchy & ScratchyThe Itchy & Scratchy Show is a show within a show in the animated television series The Simpsons. It usually appears as a part of The Krusty the Clown Show, watched regularly by Bart and Lisa Simpson...
short being the first scene to be
storyboardStoryboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence....
ed. Groening rejected making either a live-action or a
CGIComputer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
film, calling the film's animation "deliberately imperfect" and "a tribute to the art of
hand-drawn animationTraditional animation, is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand...
". The film was produced in a widescreen
2.35:1Anamorphic format is a term that can be used either for: the cinematography technique of capturing a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film, or other visual recording media, with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio; or a photographic projection format in which the original image requires an...
aspect ratio, to distinguish it from the look of the television series, and colored with the largest palette the animators had ever had available to them. A lot of the animation was produced using Wacom Cintiq tablets, which allowed images to be drawn directly onto a computer monitor to facilitate production. Animation production work was divided among four studios around the world:
Film RomanFilm Roman is an animation studio founded by Phil Roman, best known for producing the animation for The Simpsons, King of the Hill for 20th Century Fox, as well as the Garfield and Peanuts animated TV specials....
in
Burbank, CaliforniaBurbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....
,
Rough Draft StudiosRough Draft Studios, Inc. is an animation studio based in Glendale, California, United States, with its sister studio Rough Draft Korea located in Seoul, South Korea. RDS was founded in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California by Gregg Vanzo...
in
Glendale, CaliforniaGlendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
, and
AKOMAKOM Productions is a South Korean animation studio in Songpa-gu, Seoul that has provided much work since its conception in 1985 by Nelson Shin. Its biggest claim to fame is the overseas animation for 200 episodes of The Simpsons, to which that number is consistently rising...
and Rough Draft's division in
SeoulSeoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
, South Korea. As with the television series, the storyboarding, characters, background layout, and animatic parts of production, were done in America. The overseas studios completed the animation,
in-betweeningInbetweening or tweening is the process of generating intermediate frames between two images to give the appearance that the first image evolves smoothly into the second image. Inbetweens are the drawings between the key frames which help to create the illusion of motion...
, and digital ink and paint processes.
Director
David SilvermanDavid Silverman is an animator best known for directing numerous episodes of the animated TV series The Simpsons, as well as The Simpsons Movie...
said that unlike the TV series where "you [have] to pick and choose", the film gave them the opportunity to "lavish that attention [on] every single scene". The characters have shadows, unlike in the show. Silverman and the animators looked to films such as
The IncrediblesThe Incredibles is a 2004 American computer-animated action-comedy superhero film about a family of superheroes who are forced to hide their powers. It was written and directed by Brad Bird, a former director and executive consultant of The Simpsons, and was produced by Pixar and distributed by...
,
Triplets of BellevilleThe Triplets of Belleville is a 2003 animated comedy film written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. It was released as Belleville Rendez-vous in the United Kingdom...
, and
Bad Day at Black RockBad Day at Black Rock is a 1955 thriller film directed by John Sturges that combines elements of Westerns and film noir. It tells the story of a mysterious stranger who arrives at a tiny isolated town in a desert of the southwest United States in search of a man...
for inspiration, as they were "a great education in staging because of how the characters are placed". They also looked for ideas for a dream sequence, in Disney films such as
DumboDumbo is a 1941 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released on October 23, 1941, by RKO Radio Pictures.The fourth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, Dumbo is based upon the storyline written by Helen Aberson and illustrated by Harold Pearl for the prototype of a...
and the
PlutoPluto, also called Pluto the Pup, is a cartoon character created in 1930 by Walt Disney Productions. He is a light brown , medium-sized, short-haired dog. Unlike Goofy, Pluto is not anthropomorphic beyond some characteristics such as facial expression...
cartoon
Pluto's Judgment Day, and for crowd scenes in
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad WorldIt's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a 1963 American comedy film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer about the madcap pursuit of $350,000 in stolen cash by a diverse and colorful group of strangers...
. Silverman looked at some of the
Simpsons episodes he had directed, primarily his two favorites, "
Homie the Clown"Homie the Clown" is the 15th episode of The Simpsons sixth season, and aired on February 12, 1995. When Krusty the Clown opens a clown college to deal with his debt, Homer Simpson enrolls and ends up impersonating Krusty at public events. Mistaking him for the real clown, the Springfield Mafia...
" and "
Three Men and a Comic Book"Three Men and a Comic Book" is the twenty-first episode of The Simpsons second season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 9, 1991...
".
Mike B. AndersonMike B. Anderson, sometimes credited as Mikel B. Anderson, is a television director who works on The Simpsons and has directed numerous episodes of the show, and was animated in "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson" as cadet Anderson. While a college student, he directed the live action feature films...
,
Lauren MacMullanLauren MacMullan is an animation director. Her first primetime TV job was on The Critic, followed by directing for King of the Hill. She went on to become the supervising director and designer for Mission Hill. After the show was cancelled quickly, she got a job directing on The Simpsons, and...
,
Rich MooreRich Moore is an American animation director and a business partner in Rough Draft Studios, Inc., where he serves as Sr. Vice President of creative affairs. He is one of a handful of artists who in the early 90s redefined prime time television animation with his work on The Simpsons...
, and
Steven Dean MooreSteven Dean Moore is an animation director who has directed 35 episodes of The Simpsons, in addition to several episodes of the long running Nicktoon programme Rugrats...
each directed the animation for around a quarter of the film under Silverman's supervision, with numerous other animators working on scenes.
Casting
For inspiration for the crowd scenes in the film, the production staff referenced a poster featuring more than 320
Simpsons characters. Groening said they tried to include every single character in the film, with 98 having speaking parts, and most members of the crowds being previously established characters instead of generic people. The series' regular voice actors:
Dan CastellanetaDaniel Louis "Dan" Castellaneta is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, singer and screenwriter. Noted for his long-running role as Homer Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons, he voices many other characters on The Simpsons, including Abraham "Grampa" Simpson, Barney Gumble,...
,
Julie KavnerJulie Deborah Kavner is an American film and television actress, comedian and voice artist. Noted for her role as Marge Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons, she also voices other characters for the show, including Jacqueline Bouvier, and Patty and Selma Bouvier.Born in Los...
,
Nancy CartwrightNancy Campbell Cartwright is an American film and television actress, comedian and voice artist. She is best known for her long-running role as Bart Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons...
,
Yeardley SmithYeardley Smith is a French-born American actress, voice actress, writer and painter. She is best known for her long-running role as Lisa Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons....
,
Hank AzariaHenry Albert "Hank" Azaria is an American film, television and stage actor, director, voice actor, and comedian. He is noted for being one of the principal voice actors on the animated television series The Simpsons , on which he performs the voices of Moe Szyslak, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Chief...
, and
Harry ShearerHarry Julius Shearer is an American actor, comedian, writer, voice artist, musician, author, radio host and director. He is known for his long-running role on The Simpsons, his work on Saturday Night Live, the comedy band Spinal Tap and his radio program Le Show...
, as well as semi-regular performers
Tress MacNeilleTress MacNeille is an American voice actress best known for providing various voices on the animated series The Simpsons, Futurama, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Disney's House of Mouse, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Rugrats, All Grown Up!, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, and Dave the...
,
Pamela HaydenPamela Hayden is an American actress, best known for providing various voices for the animated television show The Simpsons.-Biography:...
,
Marcia WallaceMarcia Karen Wallace is an American character actress, comedienne and game show panelist, primarily known for her roles in television situation comedies...
,
Maggie RoswellMaggie Roswell is an American film and television actress and voice artist from Los Angeles, California. She is well known for her voice work on the Fox network's animated television series The Simpsons, in which she has played recurring characters such as Maude Flanders, Helen Lovejoy, Miss...
,
Russi TaylorRussi Taylor is an American voice actress. She is the current voice actress of Disney's Minnie Mouse character. She has held this role since 1986, longer than any other voice actress...
, and
Karl WiedergottKarl Wiedergott, born Karl Aloysious Treaton is a German actor. He is noted for his voice work on the long-running Fox sitcom The Simpsons since 1998, voicing background characters and some celebrities such as John Travolta and Bill Clinton...
, reprised their roles.
Joe MantegnaJoseph Anthony "Joe" Mantegna, Jr. is an American actor, producer, writer,director, and voice actor. He is best known for his roles in box office hits such as Three Amigos , The Godfather Part III , Forget Paris , and Up Close & Personal...
returned as
Fat TonyMarion Anthony "Fat Tony" D'Amico is a recurring character in the animated sitcom The Simpsons. He is voiced by Joe Mantegna and first appeared in the third season episode "Bart the Murderer"...
, while
Albert BrooksAlbert Lawrence Brooks is an American actor, voice actor, writer, comedian and director. He received an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for his role in Broadcast News...
, who supplied many guest voices in episodes, was hired as Russ Cargill, after he told the staff that he wanted to be part of the film. For "about a week", he was to reprise the role of Hank Scorpio from the episode "
You Only Move Twice"You Only Move Twice" is the second episode of The Simpsons eighth season. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 3, 1996. The episode, based on a story idea by Greg Daniels, has three major concepts: the family moves to a new town; Homer gets a friendly, sympathetic...
", but the staff felt that creating a new character was a better idea.
The cast did the first of three table readings in May 2005, and began recording every week from June 2006 until the end of production. James L. Brooks directed them for the first time since the television show's early seasons. Castellaneta found the recording sessions "more intense" than recording the television series, and "more emotionally dramatic". Some scenes, such as Marge's video message to Homer, were recorded over one hundred times, leaving the voice cast exhausted.
The writers had written the opening concert scene without a specific band in mind.
Green DayGreen Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
were cast in that role having requested to guest star in the show.
Tom HanksThomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
also appears as himself in the film and accepted the offer after just one phone call.
Everybody Loves RaymondEverybody Loves Raymond is an American television sitcom that originally ran on CBS from September 13, 1996, to May 16, 2005. Many of the situations from the show are based on the real-life experiences of lead actor Ray Romano, creator/producer Phil Rosenthal and the show's writing staff...
creator
Philip RosenthalPhilip Rosenthal is an American television writer and producer who is best known as the creator, writer and executive producer for the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond . The show was co-produced by Ray Romano, and based in part on Romano's comedy material...
provides the voice of the father in the "new
Grand CanyonThe Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, the 15th national park in the United States...
" commercial with Hanks. Due to time restraints, several guests who had recorded parts were cut from the film.
Minnie DriverMinnie Driver is an English actress and singer-songwriter. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting, as well as for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for her work in the television series The Riches.- Early life...
recorded the part of a patronizing grievance counselor in a scene that ended up being cut.
Edward NortonEdward Harrison Norton is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and producer. In 1996, his supporting role in the courtroom drama Primal Fear garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor...
recorded the part of the man who gets crushed as the dome is implemented, performing a
Woody AllenWoody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
impression. The staff felt the voice was too distracting, so Castellaneta re-recorded Norton's dialogue with a different voice.
Isla FisherIsla Lang Fisher is an actress and author. She began acting on Australian television, on the short-lived soap opera Paradise Beach before playing Shannon Reed on the soap opera Home and Away...
and
Erin BrockovichErin Brockovich-Ellis is an American legal clerk and environmental activist who, despite the lack of a formal law school education, or any legal education, was instrumental in constructing a case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company of California in 1993...
also recorded cameos, but their scenes were cut.
Kelsey GrammerAllen Kelsey Grammer is an American actor and comedian. He is most widely known for his two-decade portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the sitcoms Cheers and Frasier...
recorded lines for
Sideshow BobRobert Underdunk Terwilliger, better known as Sideshow Bob, is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Kelsey Grammer and first appeared briefly in the episode "The Telltale Head". Bob is a self-proclaimed genius who is a graduate of Yale, a member of...
, who was to appear at several different points, but these scenes were also cut.
Johnny KnoxvillePhilip John Clapp , better known by his stage name Johnny Knoxville, is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, stunt performer, best known for being the co-creator and principal star of the MTV reality series Jackass, with the catchphrase "I'm Johnny Knoxville, and welcome to Jackass."-Early...
was also touted as a possible guest star.
Although he does not provide the voice,
Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
is
President of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
in the film. He was chosen instead of the then President
George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
because then, "in two years [...] the film [would be] out of date". Brooks was nervous about the idea, noting that "[Schwarzenegger's] opinion polls were way down", he said that they "were [hoping] he'd make a political comeback". The animators began by drawing an accurate caricature of Schwarzenegger, but one of the staff instead suggested an altered version of recurring character Rainier Wolfcastle as President. This idea was developed, with the design of Wolfcastle, himself also a caricature of Schwarzenegger, being given more wrinkles under his eyes and a different hairstyle.
Editing
Every aspect of the film was constantly analyzed, with storylines, jokes, and characters regularly being rewritten. Although most animated films do not make extensive changes to the film during active production due to budget restrictions,
The Simpsons Movie crew continued to edit their film into 2007, with some edits taking place as late as May, two months before the film was released. James L. Brooks noted, "70 percent of the things in [one of the trailers]—based on where we were eight weeks ago—are no longer in the movie." Groening said that enough material for two more movies was cut. Various new characters were created, and then cut because they did not contribute enough. Originally Marge was the character who had the
prophetic visionProphecy is a process in which one or more messages that have been communicated to a prophet are then communicated to others. Such messages typically involve divine inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of conditioned events to come as well as testimonies or repeated revelations that the...
in church. The writers however considered this to be too dark and it was changed to Grampa. The role of Lisa's love interest Colin was frequently revised. He was previously named Dexter and Adrien, and his appearance was completely altered. One idea was to have
MilhouseMilhouse Mussolini Van Houten is a fictional character featured in the animated television series The Simpsons, voiced by Pamela Hayden. He is Bart Simpson's best friend in Mrs. Krabappel's fourth grade class at Springfield Elementary School....
act as Lisa's love interest, but the writers realized "the audience was not as familiar with [his] long-standing crush on [Lisa] as [they had] thought". A
car chaseA car chase is the vehicular pursuit of a suspect by law enforcement officers. Car chases are often captured on film and broadcast due to the availability of video footage recorded by police cars and police and media helicopters participating in the chase...
in which Homer throws flaming
mummiesA mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...
out of a truck at the EPA was replaced with "more emotional and realistic" scenes at the motel and carnival that allowed for a change of pace.
Further changes were made after the March 2007 preview screenings of the film in
Portland, OregonPortland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
and
Phoenix, ArizonaPhoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
. This included the deletion of Kang and Kodos heavily criticizing the film during the end credits. A lot of people at the screenings found the original film too coarse, and some of Homer's behavior too unkind, so several scenes were toned down to make him appear nicer. Russ Cargill was redesigned several times, originally appearing as an older man whose speech patterns Albert Brooks based on
Donald RumsfeldDonald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
. The older model was the one used by
Burger KingBurger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
for the action figure. Cargill's scene with Bart and Homer at the film's conclusion was added in to fully resolve his story, and the "Spider-Pig" gag was also a late addition. One excised scene, before the dome is put over Springfield, had
Mr. BurnsCharles Montgomery "Monty" Burns, usually referred to as Mr. Burns, is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons, who is voiced by Harry Shearer and previously Christopher Collins. Burns is the evil owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and is Homer...
reminding viewers that it was the last point in the film that they could get a refund. Other deletions included Homer's encounter with a sausage truck driver, which was featured on the DVD, a scene with Plopper the pig at the end, and a news report, showing the dome's effect on daily life in Springfield in areas such as farming and sport, was cut because it did not fit the overall context of the film. Several musical numbers, at various intervals throughout the film, were cut. These included a song about Alaska, featuring music by
Dave StewartDavid Allan Stewart , often known as Dave Stewart, is an English musician, songwriter and record producer, best known for his work with Eurythmics. He is usually credited as David A. Stewart, to avoid confusion with other musicians named "Dave Stewart".-Early life:Stewart was born in Sunderland,...
of
EurythmicsEurythmics were a British pop rock duo, formed in 1980, currently disbanded, but known to reunite from time to time. Consisting of members Annie Lennox and David A...
. Jean said it "got pretty far along in the animation, and then we got scared that the movie began to drag in that section."
Music
James L. Brooks chose
Hans ZimmerHans Florian Zimmer is a German film composer and music producer. He has composed music for over 100 films, including critically acclaimed film scores for The Lion King , Crimson Tide , The Thin Red Line , Gladiator , The Dark Knight and Inception .Zimmer spent the early part of his career in the...
to compose the film's score, as they were good friends and regular collaborators. Zimmer felt that the score was a "unique challenge", and he had to "try and express the style of
The Simpsons without wearing the audience out". He used
Danny ElfmanDaniel Robert "Danny" Elfman is an American composer, best known for scoring music for television and film. Up until 1995, he was the lead singer and songwriter in the rock band Oingo Boingo, a group he formed in 1976...
's original
opening theme"The Simpsons Theme", also referred to as "The Simpsons Main Title Theme" in album releases, is the theme song of the animated television series The Simpsons. It plays during the opening sequence and was composed by Danny Elfman in 1989, after series creator Matt Groening approached him requesting...
, but did not wish to overuse it. He created themes for each member of the family. Homer's
leitmotifA leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
was a major focus, and Zimmer also composed smaller themes for Bart and Marge. Regular television series composer
Alf ClausenAlf Clausen is an American film and television composer. He is best known for his work scoring many episodes of The Simpsons, of which he has been the sole composer since 1990...
was not asked to score the film, noting: "sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug".
In addition to their appearance in the film, Green Day recorded its own version of the
Simpsons theme, and released it as a single. Zimmer turned the Spider-Pig song into a choral piece, which was a joke he never intended to be put into the film. Zimmer also had to write foreign-language lyrics for the 32
dubbedDubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
versions of the song when the film was released internationally. He found translating the song into Spanish the hardest to write. The same choir learned to sing the piece for each of the foreign-language dubs.
Cultural references
Many cultural references and allusions are made throughout the film. Green Day play "
Nearer, My God, to Thee"Nearer, My God, to Thee" is a 19th century Christian hymn by Sarah Flower Adams, based loosely on Genesis 28:11–19, the story of Jacob's dream. Genesis 28:11–12 can be translated as follows: "So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the...
" on violins as their barge sinks, in a sequence parodying the film
TitanicTitanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...
. When Bart is riding his skateboard naked, different passing objects are constantly covering his
genitaliaA sex organ, or primary sexual characteristic, as narrowly defined, is any of the anatomical parts of the body which are involved in sexual reproduction and constitute the reproductive system in a complex organism; flowers are the reproductive organs of flowering plants, cones are the reproductive...
, a nod to similar techniques used in
Austin Powers: International Man of MysteryAustin Powers: International Man of Mystery is a 1997 American science fiction/action-comedy film and the first film of the Austin Powers series. It was directed by Jay Roach and written by Mike Myers who also stars in the title role. Myers also plays Dr. Evil, Austin Powers' arch-enemy...
. Homer and Marge's love scene parodies many
DisneyThe Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
films, including
CinderellaCinderella is a 1950 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the fairy tale "Cendrillon" by Charles Perrault. Twelfth in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film had a limited release on February 15, 1950 by RKO Radio Pictures. Directing credits go to Clyde Geronimi,...
, with Disney-style animals helping them undress. Originally, the music from
The Wizard of OzThe Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
was used in that scene, and the
fawnDeer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
had white spots; these were removed because the animators felt it resembled
BambiBambi, a young roe deer, is the main character in Felix Salten's Bambi, A Life in the Woods and in the Disney films based on the book. Bambi has starred in two movies, Bambi and Bambi II, has had cameos in several Disney cartoons, and has been parodied on occasion by other animation companies...
too clearly. Bart impersonates
Mickey MouseMickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...
on the train, calling himself "the mascot of an evil corporation". Homer plays
Grand Theft Walrus, an allusion to the video game series
Grand Theft AutoGrand Theft Auto is a multi-award-winning British video game series created in the United Kingdom by Dave Jones, then later by brothers Dan Houser and Sam Houser, and game designer Zachary Clarke. It is primarily developed by Edinburgh based Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games...
. In the game, his character shoots a tap-dancing penguin in reference to the film
Happy FeetHappy Feet is a 2006 American-Australian computer-animated family film with music, directed and co-written by George Miller. It was produced at Sydney-based visual effects and animation studio Animal Logic for Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures and Kingdom Feature Productions and was released...
. The "Spider-Pig" song is a parody of the theme song of the 1967
Spider-ManSpider-Man is an animated television series that ran from September 9, 1967 to June 14, 1970. It was jointly produced in Canada and the United States and was the first animated adaptation of the Spider-Man comic book series, created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko...
TV series, and the name of Lisa's lecture is
An Irritating Truth, a play on
Al GoreAlbert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
's film
An Inconvenient TruthAn Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...
. The
bomb disposal robotA remote control vehicle is defined as any mobile device that is controlled by a means that does not restrict its motion with an origin external to the device. This is often a radio control device, cable between control and vehicle, or an infrared controller...
was based on
Vincent D'OnofrioVincent Phillip D'Onofrio is an American actor, director, film producer, writer, and singer. Often referred to as an actor's actor, his work as a character actor has earned him the nickname of "Human Chameleon"...
's character Leonard "Pyle" Lawrence from the film
Full Metal JacketFull Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is an adaptation of the 1979 novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford and stars Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Arliss Howard and Adam Baldwin. The film follows a platoon of U.S...
, who commits suicide in a similar way. At the end of the film, the crowd's celebration is similar to the conclusion of
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the JediStar Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is a 1983 American epic space opera film directed by Richard Marquand and written by George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan. It is the third film released in the Star Wars saga, and the sixth in terms of the series' internal chronology...
, with Carl performing exactly the same hand gestures as
Lando CalrissianLando Calrissian is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe. He is portrayed by Billy Dee Williams in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi...
.
The $1,000 Homer received when entering Alaska is a reference to the
Alaska Permanent Fund DividendThe Alaska Permanent Fund is a constitutionally established permanent fund, managed by a semi-independent corporation, established by Alaska in 1976, primarily by the efforts of then Governor Jay Hammond...
. As Homer leaves Eski-Moe's he grabs on to a passing truck and uses it to propel himself back to the house, a tribute to actor
Buster KeatonJoseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
, while the epiphany scene features homages to the film
BrazilBrazil is a 1985 British science fiction fantasy/black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam. It was written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard and stars Jonathan Pryce. The film also features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm...
and the works of
Salvador DalíSalvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
. Hillary Clinton appears as Itchy's vice president, while an
OrcIn J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings, Orcs or Orks are a race of creatures who are used as soldiers and henchmen by both the greater and lesser villains of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings — Morgoth, Sauron and Saruman...
from
The Lord of the RingsThe Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
appears in the mob scene. A scene that was cut had Marge and the kids appear on the TV talk show
The View to spread the news of Springfield's impending doom. Parts were written for the show's entire panel and the scene was planned to feature Russ Cargill having a gunfight with
Joy BeharJosephina Victoria "Joy" Behar is an American comedian, writer, actress, and a co-host of the talk show The View. Behar has a commentary program, entitled The Joy Behar Show, on CNN's sister network, HLN...
. Another dropped scene featured
MoeMomar / Morris "Moe" Szyslak is a fictional character in the American animated television series, The Simpsons. He is voiced by Hank Azaria and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire"...
describing Springfield's varying physical states inside the dome, one of which was the
DisneylandDisneyland Park is a theme park located in Anaheim, California, owned and operated by the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts division of the Walt Disney Company. Known as Disneyland when it opened on July 18, 1955, and still almost universally referred to by that name, it is the only theme park to be...
ride
AutopiaAutopia is a Disneyland attraction, in which patrons steer specially designed cars through an enclosed track. Versions of Autopia exist at Anaheim, California, Disneyland Paris in Marne-la-Vallée, France, and at Hong Kong Disneyland on Lantau Island, Hong Kong...
. There are several references to events in previous TV episodes of
The Simpsons. These include the wreckage of the ambulance from the episode "
Bart the Daredevil"Bart the Daredevil" is the eighth episode of The Simpsons second season and aired on December 6, 1990. It was written by Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky and directed by Wes Archer. In the episode, the Simpsons go to a Monster truck rally that features famous daredevil Lance Murdock. Bart...
" crashed into a tree next to Springfield Gorge.
The CarpentersCarpenters were an American vocal and instrumental duo, consisting of sister Karen and brother Richard Carpenter. The Carpenters were the #1 selling American music act of the 1970s. Though often referred to by the public as "The Carpenters", the duo's official name on authorized recordings and...
' song "
(They Long to Be) Close to You" Close to You" is a popular song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It was first recorded by Richard Chamberlain and released as a single in 1963 as "They Long to Be Close to You," without parentheses. However, it was the single's flip side, "Blue Guitar," that became a hit...
" was used in Homer and Marge's wedding video and had also been used in several emotional moments between them in the TV series.
Themes
Al Jean described the film's message as being "a man should listen to his wife." In addition, the film parodies two major contemporary issues, religion and environmentalism. The theme of environmentalism is present throughout the film: in Homer's polluting of Lake Springfield, Green Day's cameo, Lisa's activism and her romance with Colin. The villainous Russ Cargill is head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Reviewer Ed Gonzalez argued the plot was a satire of the government's reaction to the effects of
Hurricane KatrinaHurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
on New Orleans. Ian Nathan of
EmpireEmpire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
magazine criticized this focus, believing it gave the film an "overt political agenda [which] border[s] on polemic". James D. Bloom of
Muhlenberg CollegeMuhlenberg College is a private liberal arts college located in Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1848, Muhlenberg is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and is named for Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America.- History...
commented on the "explicitness" of the film's "
intellectual agenda," on this issue, shown particularly through Lisa. He wrote that the film's first post-opening credits scene, which sees Green Day fail in an attempt to engage their audience on the issue of the environment, "sets in motion a plot expressly built around cultural agenda-setting" and "reflection on timely 'issues'."
Religion is focused on in Grampa's momentary possession, and Marge believing what he said to be a message from God. Groening joked the film "posit[s] the existence of a very active God", when asked if he believed it was likely to offend. Mark I. Pinsky, author of
The Gospel According to The Simpsons, said the film "treats genuine faith with respect, while keeping a sharp eye out for religious pretension and hypocrisy of all kinds". Regarding the scene where the tenants of Moe's Tavern and the Church switch locations, he believed it took the "chance to unmask everyone's human fallibility." In analyzing the role of Ned Flanders, he wrote, "It is [the] willingness of
The Simpsons to depict all the different sides of us [...] that makes it so rich and funny on our complicated relationship with religion." Trees are a
motifMotif may refer to the following:In creative work:* Motif , a perceivable or salient recurring fragment or succession of notes* Motif , any recurring element in a story that has symbolic significance...
in the film, and they were implemented in every important or emotional scene throughout the film. The animators inserted an apple tree behind Lisa and Colin during their initial meeting, a reference to the biblical story of
Adam and EveAdam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
in the
Garden of EdenThe Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...
.
Release
20th Century Fox announced on April 1, 2006 that the film would be released worldwide on July 27, 2007. The film was released a day earlier in Australia and the United Kingdom. Little information about the plot was released in the weeks building up to the film's release. Groening did not feel that "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."
Fox held a competition among 16
SpringfieldsSpringfield is a famously common place-name in the English-speaking world, especially in the United States. According to the U.S. Geological Survey there are currently 34 populated places in 25 states named Springfield throughout the United States, including at least four in Wisconsin;...
across the United States to host the American premiere. Each Springfield produced a film, explaining why their town should host the premiere, with the results being decided via a vote on the
USA TodayUSA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
website.
SpringfieldAs of the census of 2000, there were 2,215 people, 897 households, and 562 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,223.9 people per square mile . There were 968 housing units at an average density of 534.9 per square mile...
,
MinnesotaMinnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
dropped out on May 31, 2007. The winner was announced on July 10 to be
SpringfieldSpringfield is a town in Windsor County, Vermont, United States. The population was 9,373 at the 2010 census.-History:One of the New Hampshire grants, the township was chartered on August 20, 1761 by Governor Benning Wentworth and awarded to Gideon Lyman and 61 others...
,
VermontVermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
. The town beat
SpringfieldSpringfield is the third and current capital of the US state of Illinois and the county seat of Sangamon County with a population of 117,400 , making it the sixth most populated city in the state and the second most populated Illinois city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area...
,
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
by 15,367 votes to 14,634. Each of the other 14 entrants held their own smaller screenings of the film on July 26. Springfield, Vermont hosted the world premiere of the film on July 21 with a yellow carpet instead of the traditional
redA red carpet is traditionally used to mark the route taken by heads of state on ceremonial and formal occasions, and has in recent decades been extended to use by VIPs and celebrities at formal events.- History :...
.
The film was rated PG-13 by the
Motion Picture Association of AmericaThe Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
for "irreverent humor throughout". The production staff had expected this rating. However, the
British Board of Film ClassificationThe British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...
passed the film as a PG with no cuts made. A BBFC spokeswoman said regarding Bart's brief nude scene, "natural
nudityNudity is the state of wearing no clothing. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic. The amount of clothing worn depends on functional considerations and social considerations...
with no sexual content is acceptable in PG films".
Marketing
The
convenience storeA convenience store, corner store, corner shop, commonly called a bodega in Spanish-speaking areas of the United States, is a small store or shop in a built up area that stocks a range of everyday items such as groceries, toiletries, alcoholic and soft drinks, and may also offer money order and...
chain
7-Eleven7-Eleven is part of an international chain of convenience stores, operating under Seven-Eleven Japan Co. Ltd, which in turn is owned by Seven & I Holdings Co...
transformed 11 of its stores in the U.S. and one in Canada into
Kwik-E-MartThe Kwik-E-Mart is a fictional chain of convenience stores in the animated television series The Simpsons. It is a parody of American convenience store chains, such as 7-Eleven and Circle K, and represents many myths and stereotypes of them. It is notorious for its high prices and the poor quality...
s, at the cost of approximately
$The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
10 million. 7-Eleven also sold
Simpsons-themed merchandise in many of its stores. This included "Squishees", "Buzz Cola", "Krusty-O's" Cereal, and "Pink Movie Donuts". This promotion resulted in a 30% increase in profits for the altered 7-Eleven stores. Homer performed a special animated opening monologue for the July 24, 2007 edition of
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, as part of another promotion.
Promotions also occurred around the world. The village of
SpringfieldSpringfield is a small town in the Selwyn District of Canterbury, in the South Island, of New Zealand. In 2001 it had a population of 219. At the foot of the Southern Alps, west of Christchurch, it is the most westerly town of the central Canterbury Plains...
in
Canterbury, New ZealandThe New Zealand region of Canterbury is mainly composed of the Canterbury Plains and the surrounding mountains. Its main city, Christchurch, hosts the main office of the Christchurch City Council, the Canterbury Regional Council - called Environment Canterbury - and the University of Canterbury.-...
erected a "giant pink donut" to celebrate being named Springfield, while in London a double decker-sized floating inflatable Spider Pig was set up by the
Battersea Power StationBattersea Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station located on the south bank of the River Thames, in Battersea, South London. The station comprises two individual power stations, built in two stages in the form of a single building. Battersea A Power Station was built first in the...
. In
DorsetDorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, England, an image of Homer was painted next to the
hill figureA hill figure is a large visual representation created by cutting into a steep hillside and revealing the underlying geology. It is a type of geoglyph usually designed to be seen from afar rather than above. In some cases trenches are dug and rubble made from material brighter than the natural...
, the
Cerne Abbas giantThe Cerne Abbas Giant, also referred to as the Rude Man or the Rude Giant, is a hill figure of a giant naked man on a hillside near the village of Cerne Abbas, to the north of Dorchester, in Dorset, England. The high, wide figure is carved into the side of a steep hill, and is best viewed from...
. This caused outrage amongst local
neopagansNeopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...
who performed "rain magic" to try to get it washed away.
McFarlane ToysMcFarlane Toys, a subsidiary of Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc., is a company started by Todd McFarlane that makes highly detailed models of characters from movies, comics, musicians, video games, and sport figures...
released a line of action figures based on the film,
EA GamesElectronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
released
The Simpsons GameThe Simpsons Game is an action/platformer video game based on the animated television series The Simpsons, made for the Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation Portable. The game was developed, published, and distributed by Electronic Arts. It was released in North...
, to coincide with the film's DVD release, although the plot of the game was not based on the film.
SamsungThe Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
released
The Simpsons Movie phone, and
MicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
produced a limited edition
The Simpsons Movie Xbox 360The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
.
Ben & Jerry'sBen & Jerry's is an American ice cream company, a division of the British-Dutch Unilever conglomerate, that manufactures ice cream, frozen yogurt, sorbet, and ice cream novelty products, manufactured by Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings, Inc., headquartered in South Burlington, Vermont, United...
created a
Simpsons-themed beer and donut-flavored ice cream, entitled "Duff & D'oh! Nuts".
Windows Live MessengerWindows Live Messenger is an instant messaging client created by Microsoft that is currently designed to work with Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Xbox 360, Blackberry OS, iOS, Java ME, S60 on Symbian OS 9.x and Zune HD...
presented their users with the opportunity to download a free animated and static content for use within their conversations.
Burger KingBurger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
produced a line of
Simpsons toy figures that were given away with children's meals, and ran a series of
Simpsons-themed television adverts to promote this.
JetBlue AirwaysJetBlue Airways Corporation is an American low-cost airline. The company is headquartered in the Forest Hills neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens. Its main base is John F. Kennedy International Airport, also in Queens....
held a series of online
sweepstakesThe United States consumer sales promotion known as a sweepstake has become associated with marketing promotions targeted toward both generating enthusiasm and providing incentive reactions among customers by enticing consumers to submit free entries into drawings of chance...
to win a trip to the film's
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
premiere. They also included a channel dedicated to
The Simpsons on their planes'
in-flight entertainmentIn-flight entertainment refers to the entertainment available to aircraft passengers during a flight. In 1936, the airship Hindenburg offered passengers a piano, lounge, dining room, smoking room, and bar during the 2½ day flight between Europe and America...
system.
Critical reception
The film garnered a 90% approval rating on
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, with 171 of a total 191 reviews being determined as positive. It received a rating of 80 out of 100 (signifying "generally favorable reviews") on
MetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
from 36 reviews. British
newspaperA newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s
The GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and
The TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
both gave the film four out of five stars.
The Times' James Bone said that it "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".
The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw stated that it "gives you everything you could possibly want" and that he thought, "Eighty-five minutes [was] not long enough to do justice to 17 years of comedy genius". Ed Gonzalez praised the film for its political message, likening the
Itchy & Scratchy cartoon at the beginning to President Schwarzenegger's situation later on, as well as the film's visual gags. Randy Shulman praised the cast, and described them as having "elevated their vocal work to a craft that goes way beyond simple line readings", and particularly praised Kavner who he said "gave what must be the most heartfelt performance ever".
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave a positive review, but admitted he was "generally [not] a fan of movies spun off from TV animation". He called it "radical and simple at the same time, subversive and good-hearted, offensive without really meaning to be".
Richard CorlissRichard Nelson Corliss is a writer for Time magazine who focuses on movies, with the occasional article on music or sports. Corliss is the former editor-in-chief of Film Comment...
of
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
said that the film "doesn't try to be ruder or kinkier, just bigger and better".
USA TodayUSA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
film critic Claudia Puig said that the story did "warrant a full-length feature, thanks to a clever plot and non-stop irreverent humor". Patrick Kolan believed that the film was "easily the best stuff to come [from the
Simpsons] since
season 12The Simpsons 12th season began on Wednesday, November 1, 2000 with "Treehouse of Horror XI".The season contains four hold over episodes from the season 11 production line. The show runner for the twelfth production was Mike Scully. The season features three episodes that were produced for the...
or
13The Simpsons thirteenth season originally aired on the Fox network between November 6, 2001 and May 22, 2002 and consists of 22 episodes. The show runner for the thirteenth production season was Al Jean who executive-produced 17 episodes...
" and praised the animation, but also said that the appearances of characters such as
Comic Book GuyComic Book Guy is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Hank Azaria, and first appeared in the second-season episode "Three Men and a Comic Book", which originally aired on May 9, 1991. He is the proprietor of a comic book store, The...
and
Seymour SkinnerPrincipal W. Seymour Skinner is a fictional character in the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer. Born in Capitol City, he is the principal of Springfield Elementary School...
were "small and unfunny". Kirk Honeycutt of
The Hollywood ReporterFormerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
praised the film's good nature, stating that the laughs "come in all sizes", but also noted that, "little has been gained bringing the Simpsons to the screen."
VarietyVariety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
's Brian Lowry called it "clever, irreverent, satirical and outfitted" but that it was "just barely" capable of sustaining a running time longer than a television episode. Lisa Schwarzbaum praised the voice cast but stated that the "'action' sequences sometimes falter". When comparing the film to the early episodes of the show, Stephen Rowley concluded that the film "has more going for it than the show in its later years, but is still a long way short of what made it so invigorating".
The MonthlyThe Monthly is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer Morry Schwartz...
critic
Luke DaviesLuke Davies is an Australian writer of novels, poetry and screenplays, born in Sydney in 1962.Davies' first poetry collection, Four Plots for Magnets, was published in 1982, when he was twenty....
echoed Lowry's concerns about the length: "everything moves with the whip-crack speed of a half-hour episode. And that's the paradox: it makes the film feel like three episodes strung together. We're in a cinema, and we expect something epic." He opined that "in the great arc that is the history of
The Simpsons, this film will come to be seen as oddity rather than apotheosis."
More negative reception came from the magazine
EmpireEmpire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
, where reviewer Ian Nathan compared the film to
New CokeNew Coke was the reformulation of Coca-Cola introduced in 1985 by The Coca-Cola Company to replace the original formula of its flagship soft drink, Coca-Cola...
, saying that "it utterly failed". Phil Villarreal believed that there were "too few laugh-worthy moments" and that "instead of stretching to new frontiers, the film rests on the familiar". Sheila Johnston criticized the pacing of the film and its joke level saying that "the overall momentum flags at times" and that it was "a salvo of comic squibs, some very funny, others limp". David Edwards agreed with this, writing that although "there's a great half-hour show rattling around...the rest is padding at its very dullest".
Cosmo LandesmanCosmo Landesman is a journalist and editor and son of Jay and Fran Landesman. With his then wife Julie Burchill, he set up the magazine The Modern Review. The magazine eventually folded, and Burchill left him for Charlotte Raven, one of the magazine's female interns.After the experience Landesman...
believed, "the humour seem[ed] to have lost its satirical bite and wit" and that "much of the comedy is structured around the idiocy of Homer". This assessment was shared by Carina Chocano of
The Los Angeles Times, who felt that "once the movie wanders into its contemplation of mortality and meaning, the trenchancy kind of creaks and falls off." He negatively compared it to
South Park: Bigger, Longer & UncutSouth Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is a 1999 animated musical comedy film based on the animated television series South Park, created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. The film was directed by Parker, who also stars along with the rest of the regular voice cast from the series, including Stone, Mary...
(1999), a film similarly adapted from an animated television series, saying that, in terms of satire, it offers "nothing we don't hear every night on
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart." Bruce Newman criticized the fleeting appearances of many of the show's secondary characters, and found the film to be "a disappointment".
Box office
The film earned $30,758,269 on its opening day in the U.S. making it the 25th-highest, and fifth-highest non-sequel opening day revenue of all time. It grossed a combined total of $74,036,787 in its opening weekend on 5,500 screens at 3,922 theaters, reaching the top of the box office for that weekend. This made it the fifth-highest revenue of all time, for an opening weekend in July, and highest among non-sequels, and the highest animated TV adaptation of all time. This outperformed the expectations of $40 million that Fox had for the release.
It set several American box office records, including highest grossing opening weekend for a non-
CGComputer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
animated film and for a film based on a television series, surpassing
Mission: Impossible IIMission: Impossible II is a 2000 action film directed by John Woo, and starring Tom Cruise, who also served as the film's producer...
. It was also the third-highest grossing opening weekend for an animated film. It opened at the top of the international box office taking $96 million from 71 overseas territories, including $27.8 million in the United Kingdom, the second-highest UK opening ever for a
20th Century FoxTwentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
film. It contributed to over half of the record 5.5 million people attending British cinemas that weekend. In Australia, it grossed
$The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
13.2 million, the third-highest opening weekend in the country, and the highest for an animated film. The United Kingdom is the highest-grossing country for the film outside the US with a $78,426,654 gross overall, with Germany in second place with a $36,289,250 gross overall. The film closed on December 20, 2007 with a gross of $183,135,014 in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and a worldwide gross of $527,068,706. It was the eighth-highest grossing film worldwide and the twelfth-highest grossing in the United States and Canada of 2007.
Home media
The film was released on
DVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and
Blu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
worldwide on December 3, 2007 and on December 18, 2007 in the U.S. It contains
commentaryOn disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
tracks from both the producers and animators, six
deleted sceneIn Entertainment, especially the film and television industry, Deleted scenes are parts of a film removed or censored from or replaced by another scene in the final "cut", or version, of a film...
s, and a selection of material used to promote the film release. An unfinished deleted scene of the townspeople singing the Springfield Anthem was also included on
The Simpsons The Complete Tenth Season DVD boxset.
Promotions for the DVD release occurred across the United States. The
Empire State BuildingThe Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark skyscraper and American cultural icon in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet , and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft high. Its name is derived...
was illuminated yellow, the first time the building had ever been used as part of a film promotion. In the United Kingdom,
FoxFox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
launched a £5 million advertising campaign. They also signed a £1.6 million deal with the yogurt company
YoplaitYoplait is a brand of yogurt produced by a company owned by two French holdings, SODIAAL and PAI Partners.-History:In 1964, 100,000 French farmers merged their regional dairy cooperatives to sell nationally. In 1965, two co-ops, "Yola" and "Coplait", merged, becoming "Yoplait"...
, to produce a
The Simpsons Movie design for their brand
FrubesGo-Gurt is an American brand of yogurt marketed to children. It is squeezed out of a tube directly into the mouth, instead of being eaten with a spoon. It was introduced by General Mills' licensed Yoplait in 1999.-Background:...
. In its first week it topped the U.S. DVD chart, and generated $11.8 million in rental revenue.
Accolades
The Simpsons Movie won the award for Best Comedy Film at the
British Comedy AwardsThe British Comedy Awards is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom celebrating notable comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year.-History:...
, Best Animation at the inaugural
ITVITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
National Movie AwardsThe National Movie Awards is a British movie awards ceremony broadcast by ITV in which the winners of the awards are chosen via popular vote. The awards were initiated in 2007 following the success of the National Television Awards, the highest-rating awards ceremony for television...
, and Best Movie at the UK Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, beating
Harry Potter and the Order of the PhoenixHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a 2007 fantasy film directed by David Yates and based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. It is the fifth instalment in the Harry Potter film series, written by Michael Goldenberg and produced by David Heyman and David Barron...
,
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and
Shrek the ThirdShrek the Third is a 2007 American animated film, and the third film in the Shrek series. It was produced by Jeffrey Katzenberg for DreamWorks Animation, and is distributed by Paramount Pictures. It was released in U.S. theaters on May 18, 2007...
. The film's trailer won a Golden Trailer Award in the category Best Animated/Family Film Trailer at the 8th Annual Golden Trailer Awards.
ForbesForbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
named the film the third best of the year, based on its box office takings and
Metacritic critical response score. The film's website received a Webby Award at the 12th Annual Webby Awards in the category "Best Movie and Film Website".
At the
35th Annie AwardsThe 35th Annual Annie Awards, honoring the best in animation for 2007, was held on February 8, 2008 at UCLA's Royce Hall. This was the first change of venue for the awards in nine years, being held at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California since 1998 until last year. Ratatouille was the biggest...
the film was nominated in four categories:
Best Animated FeatureThe Annie Award for Best Animated Feature is an Annie Award, awarded annually to the best animated feature film and introduced in 1992. In 1998 the award was renamed Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Theatrical Feature, only to be reverted back to its original title again in 2001...
, Directing in an Animated Feature Production, Writing in an Animated Feature Production, and Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production for
Julie KavnerJulie Deborah Kavner is an American film and television actress, comedian and voice artist. Noted for her role as Marge Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons, she also voices other characters for the show, including Jacqueline Bouvier, and Patty and Selma Bouvier.Born in Los...
. All four awards were won by
RatatouilleRatatouille is a 2007 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the eighth film produced by Pixar, and was directed by Brad Bird, who took over from Jan Pinkava in 2005...
. It was nominated for
Best Animated Feature FilmThe Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film was awarded for the first time at the 64th Golden Globe Awards in 2007. It was the first time that the Golden Globe Awards had created a separate category for animated films since its establishment. The nominations are announced in January and...
at the
65th Golden Globe AwardsThe 65th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and television of 2007, were scheduled to be presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association on January 13, 2008...
, the
BAFTAThe British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
for
Best Animated Film-Winners and nominees:...
, and the
Producers Guild AwardThe 19th Producers Guild of America Awards was given on 2 February 2008, honouring the best film and television producers of 2007.-Theatrical Picture: No Country for Old Men*The Diving Bell and the Butterfly ...
for Animated Theatrical Motion Picture. It also received nominations for the
Satellite Award for Best Animated or Mixed Media FeatureThe Satellite Award for Best Animated or Mixed Media Feature is an annual Satellite Award given by the International Press Academy.- 1990s :-2000s:- 2010s :...
, the
Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Animated FeatureThe Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Animated Feature is one of the annual film awards by the Chicago Film Critics Association.- 2000s :...
, and the
Broadcast Film Critics AssociationThe Broadcast Film Critics Association is the largest film critics organization in the United States and Canada , representing approximately 250 television, radio and online critics....
Award for Best Animated Feature.
Before its release, the film received a nomination at the
2007 MTV Movie AwardsThe 2007 MTV Movie Awards took place on June 3, 2007 at Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California and were hosted by Sarah Silverman. The ceremony featured performances by Rihanna featuring Jay-Z, who performed "Umbrella", and Amy Winehouse, who performed "Rehab"...
for "Best Summer Movie You Haven't Seen Yet", with the award ultimately won by
Transformers, and lost the Teen Choice Award for "Choice Summer Movie – Comedy/Musical", which was won by
HairsprayHairspray is a 2007 musical film produced by Kolaja Productions and distributed by New Line Cinema. It was released in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom on July 20, 2007. The film is an adaptation of the 2002 Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was based on John...
. It was also nominated for Favorite Movie Comedy at the
People's Choice AwardsThe People's Choice Awards is an American awards show recognizing the people and the work of popular culture. The show has been held annually since 1975 and is voted on by the general public. The People's Choice Awards air on CBS and are produced by Procter & Gamble and Survivor magnate Mark Burnett...
, losing to
Knocked UpKnocked Up is a 2007 American romantic comedy drama film co-produced, written, and directed by Judd Apatow. Starring Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, and Leslie Mann, the film follows the repercussions of a drunken one-night stand between Rogen's slacker character and Heigl's just-promoted...
.
External links