The SImpsons Movie

The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 American animated adventure comedy film based on the Fox television series The Simpsons. The film was directed by David Silverman, and stars the regular television cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Tress MacNeille, Pamela Hayden, Maggie Roswell and Russi Taylor (in her last feature film role before her death in 2019), as well as Albert Brooks. The film follows Homer Simpson, whose irresponsibility gets the best of him when he pollutes the lake in Springfield after the town has cleaned it up, causing the Environmental Protection Agency to imprison the town under a giant dome. After he and his family narrowly manage to escape, they ultimately abandon Homer for his selfishness, he works to redeem his folly by stopping Russ Cargill, the head of the EPA, who intends to destroy Springfield.

Although previous attempts to create a Simpsons film had been made, they failed due to the lack of a script of appropriate length and production crew members. Eventually in 2001, producers James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Richard Sakai and Mike Scully began development of the film, and a writing team consisting of Brooks, Groening, Jean, Scully, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, Matt Selman, John Swartzwelder and Jon Vitti 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 rewriting continued after the animation had begun in 2006. Consequently, hours of finished material was cut from the final release, including cameo roles from Erin Brockovich, Minnie Driver, Isla Fisher, Kelsey Grammer and Edward Norton; Tom Hanks and the members of Green Day appeared in the final cut as their animated selves, while Brooks, a frequent guest performer on the series, provided the voice of Cargill.

Tie-in promotions were made with several companies to promote the film's release, including Burger King and 7-Eleven, the latter of which transformed selected stores into Kwik-E-Marts. The film premiered in Springfield, Vermont on July 21, 2007, and was released six days later by 20th Century Fox across the United States. The Simpsons Movie was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $527 million worldwide, making it the eighth highest-grossing film of 2007 and the highest-ever grossing film based on an animated television series.

In August 2018, it was reported that a sequel is in development.

Plot
While performing on Lake Springfield, the band Green Day perishes when the lake's pollution dissolves their barge. At their memorial, Grampa prophesies the destruction of the town, but only Marge takes this seriously. Later that day, Homer dares Bart to skateboard naked to Krusty Burger where he is arrested. Bart considers their neighbor Ned Flanders a better father after Homer refuses to take responsibility for the incident, while Lisa and her new friend named Colin convince the entire town to clean their lake.

Meanwhile, Homer rescues a pig from Krusty Burger. He stores its feces in a large silo, until Marge tells him to safely dispose of the waste. Homer initially intends to take his silo to the waste management plant, but after Lenny calls to tell him that Lard Lad Donuts is giving away free donuts, Homer dumps the silo straight into the lake, severely polluting it. Moments later, a squirrel jumps into the lake and is mutated by the pollution. Flanders and Bart, who have bonded, discover the creature before the EPA captures it. Russ Cargill, head of the EPA, presents five "unthinkable" options to U.S. President Arnold Schwarzenegger to keep the town's pollution contained. The slow-witted president picks an option without reading it, and Springfield is encased in a gigantic glass dome. Later that night, the police discover Homer's silo in the lake and accuse Homer of being responsible for the dome. The townspeople form an angry mob and advance on the Simpsons' home but they escape through a sinkhole, which then destroys their house and car. With the EPA on their trail, the Simpsons flee to a motel. Homer wins a truck at a carnival by riding a motorcycle inside a spherical steel cage and drives the family to Alaska.

After three months of many escape attempts, Springfield's residents finally make a small crack in the dome. Pointing out the damage, Cargill manipulates Schwarzenegger into ordering the town's destruction. In Alaska, the Simpsons see an advertisement for a new Grand Canyon on the site of Springfield. Realizing that the town is in danger, Marge and the children want to return to save it, but Homer refuses, so they leave him behind. Later, Homer receives a video recording message left by Marge that she taped over their wedding video. Having a change of heart, he goes searching for his family, but is stranded on a slab of ice and floats away. He has an epiphany and decides to save Springfield in order to save himself. Meanwhile, Marge and the children are captured by the EPA.

As Homer finally arrives, a helicopter lowers a "small but powerful bomb" down a rope through a hole in the dome. While Homer climbs the dome from the outside using superglue on his hands, the townspeople inside attempt to climb the rope to escape through the still-opened hole. However, Homer slides down the rope and accidentally knocks them off along with the bomb. After reuniting and reconciling with Bart, Homer rides a motorcycle up the dome interior, similar to the earlier carnival attraction. Bart, riding with him, manages to hurl the bomb through the hole which detonates seconds later, shattering the dome into shards and saving the town. Homer and Bart are confronted by Cargill, who intends to kill Homer for foiling his plan, but Maggie knocks him out with a large boulder.

The townspeople finally praise Homer as a hero and forgive him. He rides into the sunset with Marge and Maggie, whereupon the townspeople restore Springfield to normal. As a symbol of their gratitude, the townspeople help the Simpsons rebuild their house that was destroyed by the sinkhole.

Development
The production staff had considered a film adaptation of The Simpsons since early in the series. The show's creator, Matt Groening, 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 season episode "Kamp Krusty" 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 Fantasia; it was never produced, partly because it would have been too difficult to write a feature-length script. Before his death, Phil Hartman had said he had wished to make a live-action Troy McClure film, and several of the show's staff had expressed a desire to help create it, even Josh Weinstein proposed to use the plot of the 1996 episode "A Fish Called Selma" for the film, before the cancellation of the project. 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. Brooks invited back Mike Scully and Al Jean (who continued to work as showrunner on the television series) to produce the film with them. They then signed David Silverman (who, in anticipation of the project, had quit his job at Pixar) to direct the film. The "strongest possible" writing team was assembled, with many of the writers from the show's early seasons being chosen. David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, George Meyer, John Swartzwelder, and Jon Vitti were selected. Ian Maxtone-Graham and Matt Selman joined later, and Brooks, Groening, Scully, and Jean also wrote parts of the script. Sam Simon did not return having left the show over creative differences in 1993. Former writer Conan O'Brien expressed interest in working with the Simpsons staff again, although he later joked that "I worry that the Simpsons-writing portion of my brain has been destroyed after 14 years of talking to Lindsay Lohan and that guy from One Tree Hill, so maybe it's all for the best." The same went for director Brad Bird 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 Ratatouille. 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 manatees, which became the 2005 episode "The Bonfire of the Manatees", and there was also a notion similar to that of The Truman Show 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", but the idea was later used in the video game The Simpsons Game. 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 Flanders 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. Hank Scorpio, a character from the 1996 episode "You Only Move Twice", was originally meant to return as the main antagonist, but the staff dropped the idea and created Russ Cargill instead. 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 & Scratchy short being the first scene to be storyboarded. Groening rejected making either a live-action or a CGI film, calling the film's animation "deliberately imperfect" and "a tribute to the art of hand-drawn animation". The film was produced in a widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio, to distinguish it from the look of the television series, and colored with the largest palette the animators 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 Roman in Burbank, California, Rough Draft Studios in Glendale, California, and AKOM and Rough Draft's division in Seoul, 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 inbetweening, digital ink and paint, and rendered the animation to tape before being shipped back to the United States.

Director David Silverman 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 Incredibles, The Triplets of Belleville, and Bad Day at Black Rock for inspiration, as they were "a great education in staging because of how the characters are placed". They also looked for ideas for a dream sequence, in Disney films such as Dumbo and the Pluto cartoon Pluto's Judgment Day, and for crowd scenes in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Silverman looked at some of the Simpsons episodes he had directed, primarily his two favorites, "Homie the Clown" and "Three Men and a Comic Book". Mike B. Anderson, Lauren MacMullan, Rich Moore, and Steven Dean Moore 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 Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer, as well as semi-regular performers Tress MacNeille, Pamela Hayden, Marcia Wallace, Maggie Roswell, Russi Taylor, and Karl Wiedergott, reprised their roles. Joe Mantegna returned as Fat Tony, while Albert Brooks, 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, but when the character was omitted from the film, he ended up voicing Cargill.



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 Day were cast in that role having requested to guest star in the show. Tom Hanks also appears as himself in the film and accepted the offer after just one phone call. Everybody Loves Raymond creator Philip Rosenthal provides the voice of the father in the "new Grand Canyon" commercial with Hanks. Due to time restraints, several guests who had recorded parts were cut from the film. Minnie Driver recorded the part of a patronizing grievance counselor in a scene that ended up being cut. Edward Norton recorded the part of the man who gets crushed as the dome is implemented, performing a Woody Allen impression. The staff felt the voice was too distracting, so Castellaneta re-recorded Norton's dialogue with a different voice. Isla Fisher and Erin Brockovich also recorded cameos, but their scenes were cut. Kelsey Grammer recorded lines for Sideshow Bob, who was to appear at several different points, but these scenes were also cut. Johnny Knoxville was also touted as a possible guest star.

Although he does not provide the voice, Arnold Schwarzenegger is President of the United States rather than then-President George W. Bush because, according to Groening, "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", and has 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 vision 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 Milhouse 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 chase in which Homer throws flaming mummies 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, Oregon and Phoenix, Arizona. 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 Rumsfeld. The older model was the one used by Burger King 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. Burns 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 Stewart of Eurythmics. 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 Zimmer 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 Elfman's original opening theme, but did not wish to overuse it. He created themes for each member of the family. Homer's leitmotif was a major focus, and Zimmer also composed smaller themes for Bart and Marge. Regular television series composer Alf Clausen 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 dubbed 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.

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