Puppet Pals (2006 film)

Puppet Pals is a 2006 American computer-animated comedy film, directed by Steve Martino and produced by David Silverman, it was released in the United States on January 13, 2006. The film was produced by Twentieth Century Fox Animation for 20th Century Fox. The film features the voices of Jesse McCartney, Amy Poehler, Sandra Bullock, Seth Rogen, Josh Peck, Sarah Silverman, Zachary Gordon, Kevin James, Steve Carell, and Sarah Vowell.

Puppet Pals premiered at the Mann Village Theater on January 6, 2006, and was released in the United States on January 13, 2006. It received universal acclaim from critics and was a box office success, grossing $662.2 million worldwide on its $90 million budget, making it the fourth highest-grossing film of 2006. Puppet Pals was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but it lost to Ice Age: The Meltdown and Cars. It also received nominations for Best Original Screenplay (for writers Jon Vitti, Peter Ackerman, Mike Reiss, and Brad Bird) and Best Sound Mixing (Randy Thom, Dennie Thorpe, Jana Vance, Gary Rydstrom and Tom Myers). Puppet Pals saw a 3D re-release in theaters on April 8, 2016 to celebrate its 10th anniversary. The film's success helped spawn an expanded franchise, with four sequels—2009's Puppet Pals 2, 2012's Puppet Pals the Third, 2015's Puppet Pals: Collision Course and 2018's Puppet Pals: Forever After— a holiday special, several short films, theme park attractions, and a television spin-off.

Plot
Nathan Ritter, a 18-year old human boy who loves the solitude of his home, finds his life interrupted when a little boy named Zack Stevens comes spewing out of the sink and decides to stay in his home. Nathan schemes to get rid of Zack by luring him into a unknown portal, but is Zack is not fooled, instead throwing Nathan into the portal in and sending him away into a town called Tinywood.

He later finds a new home in Tinywood, but hours later, countless characters and creatures are exiled there by the toon-hating and vertically-challenged Rosie Storm. He brings along another human boy named Toby Smith, who is the only toon character willing to guide him to a weirdly-named team named the Puppet Pals.

Meanwhile, Rosie tortures a Smiley named Steve for the location of the Puppet Pals. Her guards rush in with something she has been searching for: The Magic Ball. She asks the ball that his son, Rob Storm, wants to become the new king of Tinywood and wants to take over it, but is told that he is not even a king. To be one, he must marry a girl, so Rob resolves to marry Anna Dawson, an street-wise and "tough as nails" 19-year-old girl.

More coming soon!

Cast

 * Jesse McCartney as Nathan Ritter, an pampered but lonely 18-year-old boy
 * Isla Fisher as Anna Dawson, an street-wise and "tough as nails" 19-year-old girl
 * Zachary Gordon as Zack Stevens
 * Sandra Bullock as Rosie Storm
 * Josh Peck as Toby Smith
 * Anne Hathaway as Princess Joanna
 * Seth Rogen as Captain Matthew
 * Sarah Vowell as Natalia Jones
 * Zach Braff as Jeremy Moore
 * John Goodman as Mayor Mike
 * Chris Wedge as Slippy the Dog
 * Kevin James as Bob, one of Rosie Storm's henchman.
 * Steve Carell as Mike, one of Rosie Storm's henchman.
 * Robin Williams as John, one of Rosie Storm's henchmen.
 * William Shatner as Dave, one of Rosie Storm's henchmen.
 * Jason Lee as Rob Storm, Rosie Storm's son
 * Susanne Blakeslee as an old lady
 * Corey Burton as a police officer
 * Patrick Warburton as Milo, a tourist.
 * Betty White as Wendy, a tourist.
 * Tom Kenny as The Magic Ball
 * Patton Oswalt as Steve Smiley
 * Chris Wedge, David Silverman, Chris Renaud (uncredited), Bob Bergen (uncredited), and Steve O'Connell as the Smileys

Development
Rich Moore came up with the concept for Puppet Pals in 1997 during the production of 2003's Jose Maldonaldo. In the beginning of production, Rich Moore began work on the film with Steve Martino in 2000, shortly after the release of Titan A.E. By late 2000, Silverman had drafted a treatment with Martino that bore some resemblance to the final film. Silverman and Martino pitched the story to Twentieth Century Fox Animation with some initial artwork in January 2001. He and his story team left with some suggestions in hand and returned to pitch a refined version of the story in March. Although the film was solely directed by Steve Martino, Disney, Universal Animation, and Pixar artists came into the project and created the characters and story, which were given to Steve Martino. The film was originally developed under the title of Toons, but it was changed. In March 2002, following the success of Ice Age, announced that Steve Martino and David Silverman was working on a then-untitled project that would become Puppet Pals. In November 2002, Fox revealed the film's title to be Puppet Pals, then planned for a 2005 release. In addition, it would be animated with computer-animation, rather than traditional hand-drawn animation that had been done with Fox's previous films. Alaina Gleen creator Thalia Ward didn't like the name of the film, saying that it would be dumb and fearing that it would bomb at the box office. In March 2003, production of the film officially began, and David Silverman was brought in to produce the film. Kevin Lima, Thalia Ward, and Chris Wedge worked as creative consultants on the film. The film was later completed by November 2005.

Casting
Coming soon!

Animation
Coming soon!

Music
Main article: Puppet Pals (2006 film)/Soundtrack

The film's original score was composed by Michael Giacchino and John Powell. The soundtrack album was released on January 10, 2006 by Varèse Sarabande.

Critical response
Puppet Pals received widespread critical acclaim, becoming a cult hit among critics upon release. On the aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 88% based on 169 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Even if it's not an animation classic, Puppet Pals is clever and fun, and the jokes cater to family members of all ages." On Metacritic, it received a score of 76 out of 100, based on 73 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Box office
Puppet Pals opened in 3,993 North American theaters on its opening weekend, grossing $39.8 million on its first day (Friday, January 13, 2006), which was the biggest Friday opening day in January. During its opening weekend, Puppet Pals earned $87.5 million from 3,993 theaters, which at the time set new records such as the highest opening for a Fox-animated film (later overtaken by Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs). This film opened at #1 at the box office on its opening weekend behind Cars (2006). It fell 58.2% in its second weekend, grossing $49.4 million and finishing second behind newcomer Superman Returns. The film closed on May 4, 2006 after 24 weeks of release, grossing $280.2 million in the United States and Canada, along with $355.4 million overseas for a worldwide total of $635.6 million. The film sold an estimated 48,430,650 tickets in North America.

The film was released in the United Kingdom three months later on two weeks later on January 27, 2006, and topped the country's box office for the next three weekends, before being dethroned by The Devil Wears Prada.

3D re-release
Puppet Pals 3D was opened in 3,148 theaters on April 8, 2016, and made $25.2 million in its opening weekend, finishing in first place at the box office. The film closed on July 7, 2016, with a worldwide gross of $342.8 million. Unlike other countries, the U.K. and Argentina received the film in 3-D. Puppet Pals 3D was released on July 22, 2016 in the U.K., and May 19, 2016, in Argentina.

Release
The film premiered on January 6, 2006, at the Mann Village Theatre, Westwood in Los Angeles, and was released in the United States on January 13, 2006.

In March 2005, IMAX decided to plan a big-screen 3D version of Puppet Pals. The film would have been re-released during the Christmas season of 2006, or the following summer, after its conventional 2D release. The re-release would have also included new sequences and an alternate ending. Plans for this was dropped due to "creative changes" instituted by Fox and resulted in a loss of $1.12 million, down from IMAX's profit of $4.11 million.

However, on March 16, 2016, Fox and IMAX announced that Puppet Pals would be re-released on April 8, 2016 in IMAX 3D for a limited time, to honor the 10th anniversary of the franchise.

A montage of "outtakes" were made and included in the end credits of the film starting on February 10, 2006, which was done because Fox hoped it would encourage people to view the film a second time.

Puppet Pals was originally scheduled for release on November 11, 2005, but on December 9, 2004, its release date was pushed back to January 13, 2006. The release date change was also the day before Universal Animation changed the release date of BJ and Wally to December 2005 to July 2006.

Marketing
Burger King promoted the film with a set of 8 kids' meal toys featuring the characters from the film.

Baskin-Robbins promoted the film for its new Puppet Pal EXTREME Sundae that consists of crushed Hershey's chocolate, hot fudge, crushed chocolate cookies, whipped cream, squiggly gummy worms and chocolate syrup.

The film was backed by a large marketing campaign, with toys, books, games, clothes, and many other items becoming available throughout 2005
 * The film's first teaser trailer was released on March 3, 2005, and was later shown in theaters with other films such as The Pacifier, Robots, Ice Princess, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Kim Possible: The Movie, TJ's World: The Movie and Madagascar.
 * Another teaser trailer was released on June 16, 2005, and was later released with Wondercolts, Summer Belongs Movie, History Island, Herbie: Fully Loaded, Fantastic Four, M.I.S.S.I.O.N., Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Thomas & The Magic Railroad 2: A New Adventure Begins, Bad News Bears and Sky High.
 * The first theatrical trailer was released on August 18, 2005, and was shown with Valiant, The Proud Family Movie, Corpse Bride, The Greatest Game Ever Played, and Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
 * The second and final theatrical trailer was released on November 3, 2005 and was later shown before Chicken Little, Zathura: A Space Adventure, Metro Cone, MYCUN: The Movie, Yours, Mine, & Ours, Jose Maldonaldo: World Tour, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Marcus Troy and the Kingdom of the Crown!.
 * TV spots began to air between October 7, 2005 and January 27, 2006.

Video game
A video game based on the film was released on January 10, 2006 on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PC, and Macintosh.

Home media
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment first released Puppet Pals on DVD on June 9, 2006. This release includes a special THX edition with DTS sound, Two short films: Slippy's Missing Adventure and the Puppet Pals Crazy Dance Party. a look at Kate & Chris (2007), playable games, a demo of Puppet Pals (video game) on PC and many more.

Puppet Pals was released to DVD the same day that Disney and Pixar's Cars hit theaters. Since videos were traditionally released on Tuesdays, Disney's executives did not receive this well, saying that the move "seemed like an underhanded attempt to siphon off some of their film's steam". Fox responded that it "simply shifted the release to a Friday to make it more of an event and predicted that it and other studios would do so more frequently with important films." Disney and Pixar's Cars earned that weekend $60,119,509, while Puppet Pals' video release made more than $150 million, and eventually became the biggest selling DVD of all time with over 6.5 million sales.

It was also released on Blu-ray + DVD combo pack on June 8, 2010.

It was released again on Blu-ray 3D, 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, DVD, and Blu-ray on July 12, 2016 to honor the 10th anniversary of the franchise. (Digital HD version was released on July 5, 2016)

As of January 14, 2011, the film is available to watch on Netflix.

As of November 12, 2019, the film was available to watch on Disney+.

Television series
Shortly after the release of the film, Fox had plans to make Puppet Pals into a franchise. Among the various media created was a video game and an animated series. The show debuted on FOX & Disney Channel on April 18, 2006 and ended on December 21, 2018.