The Amazing World of Gumball: The Movie

The Amazing World of Gumball The Movie! is a 2021 surreal action-comedy adventure movie based on the Cartoon Network series The Amazing World of Gumball and is the series finale and continuation to The Inquisition.

Cast

 * Nicolas Cantu as Gumball Watterson
 * Christian J. Simon as Darwin Watterson
 * Kyla Rae Kowalewski as Anais Watterson/Future Anais
 * Teresa Gallagher as Nicole Watterson/Penny Fitzgerald
 * Dan Russell as Richard Watterson
 * Charles Philipp as Rob
 * Garrick Hagon as Superintendent Evil
 * Ryan Reynolds as Purple Squirrel

Development
The film started development around the time the TAWOG episode The Vegging aired. It was created in secrecy over the course of three years and was considered the most expensive project Cartoon Network has ever worked on with Ben Bocquelet stated as saying "You think Duke Nukem Forever was bad? Try to make Duke Nukem Forever in 3 years without telling anyone the secret even though you really wanted to. That was my hell." The film was originally never going to be made but fan outcry and Cartoon Network being able to get Warner Bros. Animation Cartoon Network Studios and Titmouse inc. to assist in animating it with Studio soi and Cartoon Network Studios Europe (one of the reasons it wasn't going to happen was that the usual studios working on the show could not finish the heavily upgraded animation for the film) along with HBO max securing it as an exclusive. The next day Universal Studios' twitter tweeted a Light Blue Gumball and confirmed their intention to release the film theatrically after enough fans voiced their discontent for the film's HBO max release.

Plot
The prelude to the film begins with a short film (called The Amazing Introduction of Gumball in the credits) set to an instrumental of the song Christmas Wrapping. Gumball introduces himself and all of the films main characters set to clips from the shows past. It all builds up to Gumball chastising the viewers for being impatient with a censored f bomb. Anais states that he can't swear it's a PG movie and Gumball retorts that It's Gumball will anyone care? before both of them bow to the audience.

The film properly starts on Rob falling into the Void. Gumball wakes up thinking it was a crazy dream, but it turns out he wakes up the exact day the world ends. He tries to warn Darwin and Anais but they don't believe him. They then die as they got sent to detention because Gumball freaked out during the assembly. Darwin and Anais now know what's going to happen as they discover that they are trapped in a time loop. They proceed to ditch class by faking ilnesses to snoop around Elmore Jr. High for info. Through schenanigans involving goofing around they end up discovering that someone was plotting to destroy Elmore from the beginning. They end up fighting a mysterious assailant and their thugs. Gumball Darwin and Anais proceed to go home to warn their parents. Richard and Anais play a 2 player game while discussing the apocalypse. They then go to the Rainbow Factory and meet up with Nicole. Nicole is apalled that they skipped school but okay with it upon hearing about the apocalypse and the circumstances. They all go to an arcade to eat lunch.

At the arcade they eat wings and pizza. What was supposed to be relaxing playing arcade games turns into a nightmare as the mysterious assailant uses his powers to bring all the videogame enemies to life. The Wattersons fight the enemies and succeed. Their success straight up destroyed the arcade. The owner comes back and furiously kicks out and bans The Wattersons. The Wattersons head to the school to stop Superintendent Evil from slipping on the peel. Gumball calls out Rob who doesn't believe him at first until Gumball reminds him og the Banana Joe incident. Rob exits his disguise. Anais wonders who was the assailant. It turns out the assailant is Purple Squirrel the exact squirrel Gumball yelled at in Season 1. He then states his evil plan to destroy Elmore because no one gave him any attention. Anais disarms the void nuke he was going to use while he's talking stating "Someone hasn't seen enough movies." This infuriates Purple Squirrel who sends The Wattersons into The Void. He declares them the worst family in Elmore and uses the power of The Void to kill them.

The Wattersons run away from the destruction of The Void. As they are about to get away Purple Squirrel interrupts them with an upbeat song about how he's going to slaughter everyone and destroy the world. He kicks Gumball off a cliff which he hangs onto as Purple Squirrel gets away. Gumball falls off the cliff into an abyss. Gumball ends up falling into a red van. The Van Shopkeeper greets him while Gumball is in awe that he's in The Awesome Store. The Van Shopkeeper tells Gumball that he is the creator of Elmore and goes into detail on why Purple Squirrel is so screwed up and his reasons to destroy Elmore before him. The Van Shopkeeper was a former advertising agent who pitched mascots but all of them were rejected by his bosses for appealing to the family demographic over kids. Dejected he bought a magic notebook which brought life to the mascots and the town they now resided in Elmore - A Town of Possibilities. Purple Squirrel was the first Elmorean and the fact that the shopkeeper focused more on nurturing Elmore over him poisoned his view on everyone and everything. In a heated argument Purple Squirrel gave The Shopkeeper a nasty scar so he temporarily wiped his memory. The Vanshopkeeper will destroy Elmore as it lasted long enough. Gumball now realizes he has to save the world.

Before returning Gumball is asked about a picture involving him and his classmates and if it would make a good cartoon. Gumball states that sure he loves cartoons. This touches The Van Shopkeepers heart and makes him go against ending the world. Gumball snarks about that and gets smacked with a cane. He is then thrown at a Void portal. Gumball and his family having reunited go to Purple Squirrel's lair to stop him. Purple Squirrel rudely greets Gumball before Gumball suggests friendship as a solution. Purple Squirrel smacks Gumball off a cliff and uses the universal remote to get to him. Gumball and Purple Squirrel fight to the death in parodies of tv shows (most notably Gumball yelling at Springboob at the CMAs, and a near fight with Ricky Moose on the Deer Star after taking out his lawyers) before ending on a near shot for shot parody of the home shopping network katana incident where Purple Squirrel nearly dies. Back in The Void he summons Gumball's worst enemy Rob. He proceeds to throw an anklet on Rob and puts on a Void Reality helmet to control him. Gumball grabs a beam katana and fights Rob wielding the Universal Remote. All of a sudden the budget drops where Gumball and Rob can only speak in text to speech girl and boy, Anais Nicole and Purple Squirrel are speaking in different languages, and all the action is replaced with words.

Purple Squirrel even more irritated with the films lack of budget sends Gumball and Rob to the Advanced Void. Gumball wonders where he could be while snarking about the writers. He finds what looks like Rob's dead body. Gumball has a mental breakdown wondering if he killed Rob and blamig himself for not being kind enough. Rob turns out to be not dead to his relief. They have a discussion about how screwed their situation and their lives are. Gumball tries to find the good but Rob becomes more depressed. Gumball acknowledges how he was a bit of a jerk and how none of this would happen without him. Rob calls Gumball out for being insincere and listing off how everyone else had a better life than him. Gumball then restates it wasn't their fault if anything it was the squirrel and tries to state that we did a way better job today than most days in our lives and to not be so down about this because we'll get through it. Rob starts to agree but cries at how hopeless this situation is. Gumball proceeds to hug Rob and through the power of love for his friends lights the darkness as they float in the air.

Rob sees the anklet and chucks it. Purple Squirrel's head explodes and the characters all run away from The Void's implosion. Gumball smacks Purple Squirrels soul repeatedly. Gumball attempts to make it back by running on glitching stairs and makes a leap to the door. He wakes up to everything seeming like its back to normal. Although Gumball notices something is wrong. The fake Wattersons chant its for your own good over and over before their faces melt off. Gumball is terrified at the situation and notices Purple Squirrel's Soul. They have a huge battle until Purple Squirrel decides he's had enough and uses his power to throw The Sun at Gumball. Darwin Anais and Rob catch up to him and see that they are about to die. Darwin tries to save everyone but Purple Squirrel burns him with The Sun's laser. Darwin is on his deathbed and tells Gumball he was always a good kid no matterr what anyone said and that he loves him. Darwin dies to Gumball screaming no and abandoning all his remaining hope. Purple Squirrel proceeds to conquer Elmore by causing nonstop lightning storms earthquakes and volcanic lava to pour out. Anais does a final livestream to Elmore's residents before giving up. Polly, Penny's sister sees the broadcast and refuses to give up hope having another broadcast telling everyone to pray for The Wattersons. Everyone in the town joins hands mentions multiple times how even though Gumball was flawed they want him and The Wattersons to make it out okay. This power sends orbs into the sky which give Gumball Anais and Rob the power to fight for the world turning Gumball giant Anais into a sword and Rob into a shield. Purple Squirrel becomes giant and fights them. Purple Squirrel cannot lose as his magic armor made him invincible. Darwin as an angel comes back and tells Gumball he might have a weakness. To the discontent of everyone Gumball suggests stripping Purple Squirrel of all his armor in the creepiest way possible. Turns out the plan actually works.

Purple Squirrel uses his remaining power to call upon every single villain in the entire Gumball tv series to fight The Wattersons while Gumball does the same to summon his own Cinematic Universe Team Up of every good guy in TAWOG. The armies have a massive war as Gumball and Purple Squirrel engage their final battle. Gworp shows up as a Cthulu sized deity and annihilates the remaining city of Elmore by saying gworp. After various over the top joke battles involving JRPG Gumball and Darwin vs The Game Child, Anais in a Daisy the Donkey Fighting Mech Playset fighting the show's writers, Gumball from Cartoon Network Battle Crashers vs The Obviously Placed Shrub and Younger Gumball and Darwin vs Daisy the Donkey and Gumball after a long bloody battle and power of kindness kills Purple Squirrel by stealing his Universal Remote Blade and impaling him as they fall to the ground. He then states what an amazing world before dying as Gumball is flung through a Void portal and into the stairs of his house.

Everyone tries to celebrate but no one can get past the fact Darwin died. As everyone cries Darwin came back to life long before the crying. Gumball tells him copout and Darwin knees him. Everyone rejoices Darwin's return and he calls Nicole and Richard Mom and Dad. Everybody is incredibly happy that after all the hell everyone went through the world and Darwin were saved. We cut to 10 years later Gumball (voiced by Logan Grove) states to a brighter future holding a bottle of orange soda and everyone yells to a brighter future and toasts glasses. Everyone laughs as we zoom out to the window and pan upwards to THE END.

Reception
The film was critically acclaimed receiving an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes. Most critics called The Movie one of the most clever animated films since Spiderman Into The Spiderverse and one of the funniest films in a while. The Chicago Sun gave it a 4/5 stating I was laughing as much as my kids at this cat film but at the same time its heart was in the right place. IGN gave it an 8.2/10 saying "The Amazing World of Gumball The Movie is a contender for not just the most accurate film based on a television show but it's also one of the best and surprisingly most emotional kids comedy films in years. A lot of accolade was given to Ryan Reynolds' performance as Purple Squirrel with multiple reviewers stating "Purple Squirrel is a hilarious but tragic reflection of who we can turn into if we let our hatred and misery consume us while also being a fun and truly evil villain that makes us wonder why Disney hasn't given us similar modern villains"

Marketing Campaign
The Movie was best known for it's extremely bizarre ARG marketing campaign called WWVoid. It all started on March 27, 2018 when Ben Bocquelet asked if people wanted to see a Gumball Movie on twitter. The positive reception to the tweet started the road to the film. On May 31st 2019 The Inquistion which was the series finale to The Amazing World of Gumball was released with no film in sight. Ben Bocquelet continued to hint that he was working on a film while Cartoon Network kept shoving Gumball reruns and Gumball into advertising for the channel. A Cartoon Network logo was discovered at the end of an ingame ad on the tv within the Nintendo Switch game No More Heroes 3. Cartoon Network 5 days after No More Heroes 3 released then put out a video on their youtube channel that was called Teen Titans Season 6 It's Back and Better Than Ever. Upon clicking on the video a proposed Teen Titans Season 6 ad plays before cutting off the tv signal. In the video were letters that formed a base 64 code were hidden in the Teen Titans trailer and when the code is decoded it linked to an unlisted video. We get an ad for Cartoon Network Battle Crashers 2 which proves to be false. A free videogame based on Mao Mao Heroes of Pure Heart developed by WayForward Technologies then came out the following day on Steam Switch Xbox One Xbox Series X PS4 and PS5. The goal of the game was to save Pure Heart Valley in a 2D Sidescroller. The game was fully beatable but in the games shop there was a hint of doing something offkilter to unlock a forbidden secret. If the player defeated Orangusnake the final boss using the weakest sword in the game the game glitches up revealing japanese text. Translatng the text into English to Japanese translation says congrats on beating the game! This game has been sponsored by Maid Darkness Chronicles. Go to my link at maid.cc/cnuprising42 to gain some legendary heroes! When you go to that link you are sent to an itch.io belonging to a mr. small. There is a download link for a zip file label temp.zip. Opening the file up reveals an exe file for something called TV Station Simulator. When it is opened up you are given a tv screen and a digital remote. Pressing up and down on the keyboard changes the channel and the ingame programming shows upcoming CN shows and specials. However this a trick. If you input the Konami Code backwards on your keyboard (substituting start for enter) the game will crash and you get an mp3 file downloaded to your computer. If the mp3 file is reversed it basically says you are not safe. It then tells you to call a number (834-1965) When the number is dialed you hear what sounds like an extremely slowed down saxaphone chihuahua. Thinking this was the end and it was all a prank everyone gave up hope. However the next day Cartoon Networks twitter states that someone stole information from them and listed potential suspects. The suspects were all corporate run roleplay accounts for @MaoMaoMao (Mao Mao) @CreekLife (Craig) @Valentinez (Victor) that were privated. To find out who was the culprit adult swims twitter instructed people to watch Family Guy Season 8 Episode 3. It turns out by tweeting the phrase from that episodde The Albatross is in the Kitchen  to one of the 3 suspects you got a different response and follow from them. The goal was to find out who was actually lying. After 3 weeks it was discovered that Victor stole the data but he put it on some obscure internet site so they'll never find it. A new mod for the game Hypnospace Outlaw was made called The New Home of Cartoons. Installing the mod into Hypnospace Outlaw made a geocities styled Cartoon Network 90s website that featured videos of currently 90s shows. You need a password to get into the videos sections. The password was obtained by looking up the video game site in said game's freelands site. A new review for something called Cat Sim was posted trashing the game. The password was one of the words when the reviewer was describing its gameplay. The password was discombobulate. Typing in discombobulate granted access to a video called Cats vs Dogs The Animated series. In the video you are told about the new series and to go to a pastebin link. Decoding the atbash cypher in the link sends you to an unlisted youtube video of a direct to video film called Tom and Jerry Lost at Sea. It hinted that something was buried in a tropical island. Fans of TAWOG in Hawaii discovered a VHS tape. Playing the tape revealed an email address called talktometobaImaster@yahoo.com. When the link was emailed it sent a png over of a crossword puzzle. Finishing the puzzle and reading all the letters from up to down state Amazing potatoes. This was a hint to go to a website called Amazing Potatoes.cc The website is deliberately coded in red/blue 3D so it was impossible to read the text to go on. One fan had 3D glasses and were able to read the link. It said I can see you Elmorean. Searching Elmorean brings up an site that is an obituary for The Wattersons. Viewing source for the site shows a distorted message leading to a vimeo link. The Vimeo video was called Top 10 Hoaxes About Movies. Around the 4 minute mark a loud noise plays stating daisy. Cartoon Network the next day tweeted a link to purchase Daisy the Donkey merchandise on her website. It looked like an early 2000s website. When you click the link to buy anything a popup shows up (it will appear as a brower notification) stating "Don't buy that girly stuff buy Action Rangers!" Going to the Action Rangers page there is nothing but a vast static. If you scroll all the way to the bottom it says input pin here Commander Shepard. The pin frustrated the community for weeks until one person realized that the pin is 11-26-2027 (gotten by combining the dates of Mass Effect games on wikipedia from left to right and adding 10 to 17 at the last number) The site states welcome back Commander Shepard. It then hotlinks to an art gallery website called Inspiracion Condescenda.elm Clicking view gallery lets you see various famous paintings. What you have to do there is click the screen and type show me some real art. It then showed a pixellated Jpeg of the infamous Wattersons running away from destruction painting. The screen then cuts to YOU WERENT SUPPOSED TO SEE THAT. Cartoon Network the next day tweets a message stating Gumball has been kidnapped! Help us find him in this new Cartoon Network app! Going to download the app hotlinks to a website called Star Ratings inc. You then play a game to give as many 1 star ratings as possible. But at level 95-100 all of the 5 Wattersons show up. If you rate any of them one star the game jump scares you with the spider image from the Gumball episode The Spoiler. If you rate all 5 of them 5 stars you get the following message "The Wattersons are safe thanks to you, but not for long" A month after over a thousand people have beat the star ratings game an update for the TAWOG flash game The Principals comes out. An event after exactly 25 days have passed ingame is called The End. It is a trivia quiz based on the events of the ARG eg where is the video tape found B. Hawaii. and Gumball trivia. Once the quiz is 100%d with no mistakes (getting a mistake restarts the quiz) Rob shows up and congratulates the player before getting captured by The Void. A link for the full trailer of The Amazing World of Gumball The Movie! is hotlinked and played directly from Cartoon Network.com. The events of the ARG are explained in the tie in to The Movie's book "What We Went Through For A Kids Film - The Story Behind the TAWOG WWVoid ARG"

Trivia

 * The Movie is the 10th Anniversary Special to The Amazing World of Gumball and is the series' Grand Finale.
 * This is one of the first animated films based on a kids cartoon to be rated PG-13 by the MPAA. It was rated PG-13 For Intense Fantasy Violence, Scenes of Destruction, Irreverent Rude Humor, Suggestive Themes, and Frightening Imagery. Other countries were more lenient with most giving it their equivalent to a PG rating and Eirin gave it a G rating.
 * This is the 3rd movie by Cartoon Network to be released theatrically.
 * The movie's cost was about 50 million dollars making it the most expensive movie Cartoon Network has made.
 * The film's theatrical release was going to be canceled entirely in the wake of COVID19 but Universal Studios picked it up for a limited American theatrical release/main theatrical release everywhere else.
 * Originally the film did not start with The Amazing Introduction of Gumball instead cutting directly to the main movie but a test screening that had confusion from the audience on who Gumball characters are made it so The Amazing Introduction of Gumball would preface every copy of the movie.
 * In the United States and the UK The Movie was primarily released on HBO max however in other countries it debuted in theaters.
 * 7-Eleven debuted Slurpees based on The Movie. Gumball Blue Cotton Candy Darwin Orange Creamsicle and Anais Pink Strawberry Daiquiri were released around the movie's reveal.
 * Cartoon Network forced Warner Bros. to advertise The Movie on every single tv channel as they recently found out Warner Bros. intentionally sabatoged The Powerpuff Girls Movie by not advertising it.
 * The film was accidentally leaked when amazon prime video/fandango accidentally put the video file for The Amazing World of Gumball The Movie! into Ben 10 Vs The Universe's digital release.
 * The theatrical release has an exclusive Universal Studios live action Gumball candy logo over a less blurry version of the show's title background.
 * The long awaited tv broadcast of The Movie and its Every Gumball Ever marathon leading up to the premiere was prefaced by nearly every single other tv station doing movie marathons or over the top ratings stunts eg TV Japan aired a Pop Team Epic Dub/Sub marathon Nickelodeon aired all the Spongebob movies Syfy became G4 TV for 3 days and played Xplay and Code Monkeys reruns while turning back into Syfy to reair Mystery Science Theater 3000 at midnight, Disney Channel marathoned Gravity Falls/Freeform did a Disney Renaissance marathon/abc played all the PIXAR movies, NBC played a Kimba the White Lion marathon, and CBS played the HD remasters of Garfield and Friends all just to one up Gumball.
 * It carried on to turner owned stations. CNN just looped the episode The News constantly until The Movie was over tbs returned to the very funny logo and left a snarky unchanging message telling the viewer to go watch The Gumball Movie, TNT played a marathon of the show's darkest episodes, TruTV played every episode of Adam Ruins Everything, Boomerang just simulcasted The Movie and HBO played every single movie based on a Cartoon Network show starting from Dexter's Lab Ego Trip leading up to simulcasting the Gumball Movie premiere.