Bobby's World: The Movie



Bobby's World: The Movie is an upcoming 2020 American-Canadian hand-drawn animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Film Roman, Rough Draft Studios, and 20th Century Fox Animation. Based on the 1990s Fox Kids animated television series of the same name, the film is being written by Nicholas Stoller, Genndy Tartakovsky, Robert Mittenthal, Greg Grabianski, and Jon Vitti, produced by Conrad Vernon, and directed by Vernon, Tartakovsky, and Stoller, with Howie Mandel serving as the executive producer of the movie.

The film follows Bobby Generic, a little boy with big imaginations, who is forced by a sinister dark lord and his wife, who both hate children, imagination, and creativity, to leave his homeworld of Bobbyland and move into Oregon on planet Earth where he meets the Generic family, who adopted him, and his next-door neighbor, who is a little girl named Jackie.

Bobby's World: The Movie is set to be released in the United States and Canada on August 16, 2020, in 2D, Digital 3D, RealD 3D, IMAX, and IMAX 3D by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures through 20th Century Fox.

The film stars Howie Mandel, Seth Rogen, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Cameron Seely, Nick Kroll, Emily Blunt, Gary Oldman, Kristen Bell, Miranda Cosgrove, and Owen Vaccaro.

Summary
Bobby Generic is a young boy with big imaginations that used to live at his homeworld of Bobbyland. One day, his home was under attack by Lord Reality and his wife Lady Reality, two sinister dark rulers who hate children, imagination, and creativity. In order to get away from them, he packs his stuff and uses the magic fairy pixie dust on him, which lifts him up into the outer space, as he leaves his home and moves into Oregon on planet Earth where he meets the Generic family, who adopted him, and his next-door neighbor, who is a little girl named Jackie. At first, Bobby has some difficulties adjusting to his new life, but he manages to pull through. Unfortunately, Lord Reality has designed a plot, with help from Lady Reality, to destroy Bobby and take over planet Earth. This leads both Bobby and Jackie on an epic journey to save the world from Lord and Lady Reality's wrath and bring imagination and creativity back to children everywhere. The treacherous quest takes Bobby and Jackie through some of Earth's most valued places including Hollywood, Century City, Las Vegas, Miami, New York City, Mexico City, Toronto, Montreal, London, Paris, Athens, Berlin, Cairo, Tokyo, Dubai, Beijing, Mumbai, and Sydney. And all the while, the pair are pursued by Lord and Lady Reality's henchmen/army and a relentless "tough as nails" hitman called Mr. Von Terrible.

Plot
Somewhere in the galaxy, there is a place called Bobbyland that is located in the smallest star, which can only be found in the imaginations of children everywhere. Bobbyland was a home to a sweet little boy named Bobby.

One day, Bobby is wandering around in the forest having fun. Little does he know that he's being watched by a dark lord named Lord Reality and his wife Lady Reality. The two dark rulers live in a business building-like mansion at the city of BusinessVille. BusinessVille is located on an Earth-like planet, which is a lightyear away from Bobbyland. As Lord Reality and Lady Reality are watching Bobby on a video transmission from his video telescope satellite that is above Bobbyland, they get annoyed with his silly childish behavior and his obsession with imagination and creativity. They hate Bobby and want to get rid of him, so Lord Reality sends his army to destroy the boy and his world.

Back in Bobbyland, Bobby is sitting in the shade watching clouds in the sky until he sees several ships flying on top of his world. The ships later attack and destroy the world with their laser beams. Bobby barely escapes the destruction of his land, packs his stuff, and uses the magic pixie dust on himself, which lifts him up into the outer space. Bobby flies away from the dying Bobbyland, which then exploded into millions of pieces, and crash lands into a yard in Oregon on planet Earth in the night.

The next morning, Bobby wakes up as he sees a generic family, the Generics, who discovered him in their yard, the same yard Bobby crash landed into. They welcome him and invite him over to their house for breakfast. Due to the parents and the children going off on their regular routine, Howard and Martha Generic take Bobby to Uncle Ted. At first, Bobby is reluctant to see him but he soon finds out that he is actually a nice person with a calm and welcome heart.

More coming soon!

Cast

 * Howie Mandel as Robert Adelvice "Bobby" Generic, a 4-year-old little boy with his big overactive imagination on how he sees the world. Bobby has spiky black hair. In Bobbyland, he wears a white sailor-like hat with black tassels, white shirt with short sleeves, blue navy sailor collar with white stripes, blue shorts with two white buttons, white socks and black Mary Jane shoes. On earth, he wears a white shirt with red short sleeves, red shorts, and blue sneakers. He's the main titular protagonist of the movie. His voice actor also serves as executive producer of the film.
 * Cameron Seely as Jackie, Bobby's next-door neighbor/classmate/love interest with the floor-length pigtails who is the main deuteragonist of the movie. She has a crush on Bobby and always kisses him, which he hates, and hugs him, which he loves. She speaks with a monotonic voice.
 * Nick Kroll as Lord Reality, a sinister dark lord who hates children, especially Bobby, imagination, and creativity. He's the main antagonist of the movie.
 * Emily Blunt as Lady Reality, Lord Reality's wife who, like him, also hates children, imagination, and creativity. She's one of the two secondary antagonists of the movie.
 * Gary Oldman as Mr. Von Terrible, a relentless "tough as nails" hitman who is hired by Lord Reality and Lady Reality to exterminate Bobby and Jackie. He's one of the two secondary antagonists of the movie.
 * Chris Pratt as Howard Generic, Bobby's father.
 * Elizabeth Banks as Martha Generic, Bobby's mother who often punctuates her speech with phrases like "Fer corn sakes", "Fer cryin' in the mud", "gee golly", "gosh darn", and "don't 'cha know".
 * Miranda Cosgrove as Kelly Generic, Bobby's 15-year-old tomboyish bully sister.
 * Owen Vaccaro as Derek Generic, Bobby's 10-year-old brother who always teases and insults Bobby and tends to call him a "dork".
 * Kristen Bell as Aunt Ruth, Martha's sister who is Bobby's aunt.
 * Seth Rogen voices the following characters:
 * Uncle Ted, a fun-loving fellow who is Bobby's uncle. He's also the brother of Martha and Ruth.
 * The narrator of the movie.
 * Frank Welker as Roger, the Generic family dog.
 * Keegan-Michael Key
 * Jordan Peele
 * Patrick Warburton
 * Chris Pine
 * Bill Hader
 * Kristen Schaal
 * Michael Peña
 * Gal Gadot
 * Kimiko Glenn
 * Michael Cera
 * Salma Hayek
 * Kristen Wiig

Popular culture cameos and references
Coming soon!

Development
Bobby's World: The Movie was long-planned; In November 2014, it was announced that Mandel told a crowd at Comikaze that plans to revive the series were in motion. In May 2015, 20th Century Fox Animation greenlit the Bobby's World movie in production. Mandel was concerned after watching animated films with his family, about the challenge of Bobby doing something more cinematically-consequential and inspiring without losing the charm of the series. "To do a big 112-minute feature film about Bobby getting lost in his own imagination would be a big mistake. This has to be Bobby on a grand-scale adventure. That's where all the action, heart, and comedy are coming from, having two characters, Bobby and Jackie, an imaginative little boy and a little girl who has a secret crush, on this dangerous odyssey with all the odds and evens against them." Howie Mandel signed Nicholas Stoller, Genndy Tartakovsky, and Conrad Vernon to direct the film.

Writing
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 other animated films. The crew was initially worried that creating a film based on a 90's TV series would have a negative effect, as they did not have enough people to focus their attention on this project. As the film progressed, additional artists were hired so that the film could be done on time. The "strongest possible" writing team was assembled, with the film's directors, Greg Grabianski, Robert Mittenthal, and Jon Vitti being selected. Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger both joined the writing team later. The film's original plot had Bobby being kidnapped and chosen as "the special one" while his family is trying to find him; an obvious reference to both animated films, The LEGO Movie, and Finding Nemo, this was later said by Howie Mandel and Conrad Vernon to be a "joke" plot to keep fans of the show busy. For the official plot of the film, the writers created an epic mythical hero story: The destruction of Bobbyland, Bobby moving in with the Generic family, and an evil lord's plan, which brings Bobby and his next-door neighbor Jackie on an epic quest.

Casting
Howie Mandel is rumored to reprise his role as Bobby. Mandel later announced that he will be serving as executive producer and that he will return as Bobby Generic. The rest of the cast was announced in September 2018.

Animation
Animation began in October 2018. Howie Mandel rejected making a CGI film, calling the film's animation "a tribute to the world and art of traditional hand-drawn animated films". He said that he would not like it if the film was CGI and that it would destroy the hearts of people who grew up with Bobby's World. The film was produced in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, to distinguish it from the looks of the Bobby's World TV series and was colored by the same palette behind said show.

Most of the in-house animation crew of the film were from many different animation studios, including Walt Disney Animation Studios, DreamWorks Animation, DHX Media, Duncan Studio, and Warner Bros. Animation.

The animation was done by Film Roman in Woodland Hills, California and Rough Draft Studios in Glendale, California. Additional animation production work was divided among eight studios: Yowza Animation in Toronto, Canada, Bardel Entertainment in Vancouver, Canada, Mercury Filmworks in Ottawa, Canada, Toon City Animation in Manila, Philippines, Wang Film Productions in Xindian, Taipei, Taiwan, Digital eMation/Rough Draft's division in South Korea, and Warner Bros. Animation in Burbank, California. The stereoscopic 3D conversion and the stereographic animation was done by StereoD in Burbank, California.

Roger Deakins, Alexander McDowell, and Raymond Zibach signed on as visual consultants for the movie. The three consultants tackled with the idea of a three-dimensional traditional-animated film. Because of this, the camera moves both differently than many of the hand-drawn animated films and similarly to a live-action film.

Post production
Gary Rydstrom and Randy Thom, the sound designers of the film, used a combination of sound approaches. Some of the sound effects are cartoony while others tend to be more realistic.

Music
In May 2019, it was confirmed that Alan Menken and Christopher Lennertz would compose the score for the film. Menken and Lennertz previously composed the score together for the R-rated CGI animated film Sausage Party. The two felt that the score was a "unique challenge" as they had to "try and express the style of Bobby's World without wearing the audience out". They used the opening theme from the series, but they did not want to overuse it.

Songs
Coming soon!

Soundtrack
Coming soon!

Release
Coming soon!

Trailers

 * The first teaser trailer will be released on May 2019 and will be shown before Avengers 4, Detective Pikachu, Aladdin, The Secret Life of Pets 2, Toy Story 4, and The Lion King.
 * The second teaser trailer will be released on September 2019 and will be shown before Spies in Disguise, Abominable, The Addams Family, Sonic the Hedgehog, Frozen 2, and Star Wars: Episode IX.
 * The first theatrical trailer will be released on January 2020 and will be shown before The Mitchells vs. The Machines, The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle, Peter Rabbit 2, Nimona, an untitled Pixar film, Mulan, an untitled Sony Pictures Animation film, and Trolls World Tour.

Theatrical release promotions

 * Fox will air a Bobby's World marathon Saturdays on July 2020.
 * 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment announced that they will release Bobby's World: The Complete Series on Blu-Ray, DVD, and Digital HD, February 19, 2020.

Home media
Coming soon!

Box office
Coming soon!

Critical response
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 94% based on 235 reviews, with an average score of 9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Bobby's World: The Movie expands upon the titular character's world with fluid animation, great characters, a spectacular voice cast, and slick writing that will make some of today's animated movies look pedestrian." On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 90 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale.

Ken Jaworowski of Time Magazine praised the cast, and described them as having "elevated their vocal work to a craft that goes way beyond simple line readings". Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a rare "A+" grade and applauded the film's creative team for "upholding the bars of traditional animation". Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter praised the directors for "rediscovering hand-drawn traditional animation" and for "a funny yet daring journey for the characters". Andrew Barker of Variety praised the film for "being downright funny and adventurous". Although he felt the film was too long and the 3D elements were bugging him, he said the film would prove "popular among kids and adults alike." Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News gave the film five out of five stars, saying "The spirit of traditional animation remains true to its source. In other words, it's cheerfully random and spectacular."

The Los Angeles Times gave the film a positive review claiming that "It is clever, ridiculous, and ageless." Nicolas Rapold of The New York Times also gave the film a positive review saying that "somewhere in the film's colorful imagery, fresh animation, and well-balanced script, we might begin to realize that we’re watching a terrifying satire about the ways that a life without imagination makes monsters of us all". IGN gave the film a 9.5 out of 10 "Amazing" score, saying that "The colorful action and adventure should delight children, but the smart and humorous script makes it definitely appealing to grown-ups."