Meanie Harold 2: Harold Goes Mad at the Internet

Harold Goes Mad at the Internet (formerly known as, Meanie Harold 2 and Harold Goes Mad at the Internet: Meanie Harold 2) is a 2028 Upcoming American computer-animated comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. The 69th animated film produced by the studio and the sequel to the 2022 film Meanie Harold, it is directed by Rich Moore and Phil Johnston (in Johnston's directorial debut), written by Johnston and Pamela Ribon from a story by Moore, Johnston, Ribon, Josie Trinidad, and Jim Reardon, produced by Clark Spencer, and executive-produced by John Lasseter, Jennifer Lee, and Chris Williams. Rob Riggle, Sarah Silverman, Ewan McGregor, James Marsden, Anna Kendrick, Gal Gadot, John Stamos, Kimiko Glenn, Lori Loughlin, and Jim Carrey reprise their character roles from the first film, and are joined by Brie Larson, Keke Palmer, and Antonio Banderas as part of the new cast, as well as Jason Segel, who voiced a new character in this film. In the film, Harold (Riggle), Izzy Moonbow (Glenn), and Penelope von Mint (Silverman) must travel to the Internet to get a replacement for the Sweetie Rush cabinet's broken steering wheel and prevent Mr. Clarkson (Carrey) from disposing of the game.

The first discussions about a sequel to Meanie Harold began in September 2022, and the new installment went through three different scripts before the filmmakers settled on the final plot. When the film was officially announced in June 2026 as Harold Goes Mad at the Internet: Meanie Harold 2, much of the original cast confirmed they had signed on, with new cast members added in 2028. It is Walt Disney Animation Studios' first computer-animated film sequel and is the first sequel from the studio to be created by the original film's creative team.

Harold Goes Mad at the Internet premiered in Los Angeles on November 6, 2018, and was released in the United States on November 21. The film grossed over $529.3 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews from critics. The film was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 91st Academy Awards, 76th Golden Globe Awards, 46th Annie Awards, and 24th Critics' Choice Awards, losing all four awards to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Plot
Six years after the events of the first film, Harold, Penelope, and Izzy have stayed best friends, hanging out after work in Clarkston's Family Fun Center. Harold is content with their life, but Penelope and Izzy longs for excitement and expresses how bored she has become of Sweetie Rush's predictability. To please her, Harold and Izzy are sneaks into her game and makes a secret road shortcut. The next day, when Penelope fights the arcade player's control to test the track, the cabinet's steering wheel breaks. As the company that made Sweetie Rush is defunct, and the cost of a replacement wheel on eBay is too high, Clarkston decides to scrap Sweetie Rush and unplugs the game, leaving its citizens homeless. The Surge Protector finds homes for all Sweetie Rush's citizens as a short-term measure as they figure out how to save the game, with Felix, Gloriosa, Lucas, Michelle, Mandy, and Timber adopting the racers. Remembering eBay, Harold, Penelope, and Izzy travel through Clarkstoon's new Wi-Fi router to the Internet, a place where websites are represented as buildings in a sprawling city, avatars represent users, and programs are people. The search engine KnowsMore directs them to eBay, where they win the auction for the steering wheel by unintentionally spiking the price to US$27,001 only to find they have just 24 hours to raise the funds, or they will forfeit the bid and lose the wheel. On the way out, they run into clickbait salesman J. G. Spamney, who brokers items obtained from video games and offers them a lucrative job of stealing a car from Chuck, the lead character in the popular racing-centered battle royale game Slaughter Race. They steal Chuck's car, but she stops them before they can leave the game with it. Suggesting another way to make money on the Internet, she proceeds to make a viral video of Harold and uploads it to video-sharing site BuzzzTube. She directs them to BuzzzTube's head algorithm, Yeeeeaaah, who capitalizes on Harold's video popularity. They decide to make more videos, which will earn them the money for the wheel if they attract enough views. Penelope and Izzy are offers to help advertise the videos, and Harold has Yeeeaaah send her to Oh My Disney. There, while being chased by Stormtroopers for advertising on the site, Penelope and Izzy are befriends the Disney Princesses as well as Anna and Elsa, Mirabelle, Isabela, and Luisa being encouraged by them to discuss her sense of un-fulfillment and reaching an epiphany in the form of an "I Want" song on the subject. Harold makes enough money to buy the wheel but finds Penelope and Izzy are talking with Chuck about staying in Slaughter Race, having felt at home there due to its relative novelty and unpredictability compared to Sweetie Rush. Worried of losing his friend forever, Harold asks Spamney for a way to draw Penelope out of the game and is brought to the dark web vendor Double Dan, who provides Harold with a virus, Arthur, that feeds off insecurities and replicates them. When Harold unleashes Arthur into Slaughter Race, it replicates Penelope's glitch, triggering a server reboot. Harold, Chuck, and the others help Penelope and Izzy escape before the game resets. Penelope and Izzy are blames herself for the crash, but Harold confesses to her that the crash was actually his fault. Outraged, Penelope throws away his hero cookie medal and runs off and Izzy cries and runs off too. As a guilt-ridden Harold finds his now-cracked-in-half medal, Arthur copies Harold's insecurities and makes duplicates of Harold. The clones overrun the Internet in a global DoS attack, all chasing after Penelope and Izzy are to keep her for themselves. Harold saves her and attempts to lure the clones into a firewall, but they form a giant Harold monster that seizes them both. Harold comes to accept that Penelope and Izzy are can make her own choices, letting go of his insecurities. This also causes the giant Harold monster and the clones to disappear, and Harold, Penelope, and Izzy are reconcile. Harold gives half of the broken medal to Penelope and Izzy and they bid each other a heartfelt farewell as Chuck has arranged for Penelope and Izzy to respawn in Slaughter Race. Back in the arcade, Sweetie Rush is repaired, and Harold partakes in social activities with the other arcade characters as he stays in touch with Penelope and Izzy are over video chat, feeling content with his newfound ability to be independent.

Voice cast
The first twelve characters in the Disney Princess line appear, along with Anna and Elsa from Frozen, Mirabel, Isabela, and Luisa from Encanto, Asha from Wish, Tina Starscout from Twilight. All were voiced by the voice actresses who originated the roles, except for Cinderella and Aurora, who were voiced by the voice actresses who currently portray them in Disney Princess material, Jennifer Hale and Kate Higgins, respectively, as Cinderella's original voice actress, Ilene Woods, died in 2010, and Aurora's original voice actress, Mary Costa, had retired, and Snow White, who was voiced by screenwriter Pamela Ribon, as Snow White's original voice actress, Adriana Caselotti, had passed away in 1997. Additionally, Rajah (Jasmine's pet tiger), Meeko (Pocahontas' pet raccoon), Cinderella's mice (including Jaq and Gus) and her bird companions, and Prince Naveen (in frog form, whom Harold mistakes for Frogger) also appear in the film.
 * Rob Riggle as Meanie Harold, a gigantic but soft-hearted man who is the villain of the fictional cartoon Super Felix Pals
 * Sarah Silverman as Penelope Von Mint, a racer/glitch in Sugar Rush.
 * Kimiko Glenn as Izzy Moonbow, Michelle's Sidekick character of Mermaid's Adventure.
 * Brie Larson as Chuck, a tough and talented NPC racer in Slaughter Race.
 * Keke Palmer as Yeeeaaah, an algorithm that determines the trending videos on BuzzzTube (a portmanteau of YouTube and BuzzFeed). Parts of her character were modeled after Cruella de Vil, as both characters are seen as fashionable.
 * Ewan McGregor as Super Felix, a Adventure boy who is the hero of Super Felix Pals
 * James Marsden as Super Lucas, a Adventure kid who is the sidekick of Super Felix Pals
 * Anna Kendrick as Pretty Mandy, a Prettiest girl who rescue by Felix and Lucas of Super Felix Pals
 * Gal Gadot as Scout Master Gloriosa Daisy, the lead character of Camp Hero's Duty. Gloriosa is based on Samus Aran from Metroid.
 * John Stamos as Timber Spruce, the sidekick character of Camp Hero's Duty.
 * Lori Loughlin as Michelle Mermaid, the main protagonist character of Mermaid's Adventure
 * Jason Segel as KnowsMore
 * Antonio Banderas as Double Jack
 * Jim Carrey as Mr. Stan Clarkston

Several characters from other films and media also cameo with their original or current voice actors, such as Roger Craig Smith as Sonic the Hedgehog, Tara Strong as Princess Twilight Sparkle, Kate Higgins as Frankie Stein, Debi Derryberry as Draculaura, Maurice LaMarche as Tapper, Brad Garrett as Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, Matthew Lillard as Shaggy Rogers, Frank Welker as Scooby-Doo and Garfield, Tom Kenny as SpongeBob SquarePants, Iain Armitage as Chase, Corey Burton as Grumpy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Kyla Pratt as Penny Proud, Billy West as Dr. Zoidberg, Dan Povenmire as Dr. Doofenshmirtz, Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson Anthony Daniels as C-3PO from Star Wars, Vin Diesel as Groot from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Owen Wilson as Lightning McQueen, and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story. Additionally, Melissa Villaseñor voices Taffyta Muttonfudge, one of the Sugar Rush racers, replacing Jayden Bartels from the original film; Hilary Duff voices Donut-Tina Alec Baldwin provides the uncredited voice of J. P. Spamney, a personification of clickbait pop-up ads represented as a desperate salesman who cannot make a sale; John DiMaggio voices Arthur and Bender from Futurama, an insecurity virus; Sean Giambrone (English YouTuber Daniel Middleton/DanTDM in the UK version, but not on the UK home release) voices eBoy and Charli D'Amelio voices eGirl, an eBay employee who informs Harold of the status on the eBay item deadline; Flula Borg voices Maybe, an algorithm who is an assistant to Yeeeaaah; and Dianna Agron voices the news anchor covering the virus in the real world. Ali Wong, Timothy Simons, GloZell Green, and Hamish Blake, respectively, voice Felony, Butcher Boy, Little Debbie, and Pyro, all of whom are other characters in Slaughter Race as Shank's racing crew. The film's directors Rich Moore and Phil Johnston reprise their roles as Sour Sam, Zangief (Moore), and the Surge Protector (Lopez), respectively. YouTube personalities Colleen Ballinger, Dani Fernandez, and Tiffany Herrera also voice cameos, with Nicole Scherzinger having a cameo voice role in a mid-credits scene, too.

Popular culture cameos and references
Similar to the first film, Harold Goes Mad at the Internet includes a number of cameos and references to video games and various Disney properties, including their own films, Pixar films, Star Wars, Marvel Comics, Indiana Jones, Fox, and The Muppets franchises. The band AJR (whose song "Zero" is featured in a trailer for the film, as well as its end credits and soundtrack) make a cameo appearance in the film, with the members voicing themselves. The video game Fortnite Battle Royale is briefly shown, including the battle bus and the floss dance. Stan Lee, Marvel Comics' former writer, editor, and publisher, makes a cameo appearance in the film. The filmmakers revealed that the film originally featured a joke about Kylo Ren being a "spoiled child", which was later cut from the film by request from Lucasfilm because it would undermine his role as a villain. Also cut from the film was C-3PO being mockingly called R2-D2 and BB-8 by the princesses. Additionally, the film would originally include The Golden Girls characters, but it was later cut because the directors felt it was a bizarre juxtaposition. The legion of Harold clones, which forms a gigantic Harold monster, resembles the King Kong character from various films. During production, the giant monster form was dubbed "Haroldzilla" after Godzilla.

Cameos
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Development
In September 2012, Rich Moore said that there were already ideas for a sequel, and in March 2013, Moore said that he and Disney had ideas about a sequel that would bring the characters up to date and explore online gaming and console gaming. Moore stated that many of the crew and voice cast were open to the sequel, believing that they have "barely scratched the surface" of the video game world they envisioned. He also stated that he planned to include Tron in the sequel, which appears briefly in the film, where Ralph and Vanellope race at the beginning. In 2014, the first film's composer Henry Jackman said that a story for the sequel was being written. In March 2016, Moore stated that a sequel was still being planned. In June 2016, Walt Disney Animation Studios announced that the sequel would be released on March 9, 2018, with Moore and Phil Johnston attached, and that its story would be one where "Ralph leaves the arcade and wrecks the Internet". In March 2017, the sequel's title was officially announced as Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2, with Moore returning as director joined by the first film's co-writer, Johnston, and Clark Spencer also returning as producer. In July 2018, Disney removed Wreck-It Ralph 2 from the film's title.

Writing
Two working versions of the script had been scrapped before settling on the one used for the film, according to head writer Josie Trinidad. In one version, Vanellope had become self-absorbed by the Internet, gaining popularity and becoming a celebrity among the users. Ralph had been thrown in jail where he met the search engine Knowsmore, and they had partnered together to escape prison and help bring Vanellope back to her normal self. A second version had Ralph becoming an Internet-famous celebrity and would have been challenged by an anti-virus program named BEV that served as a super cop and would have been the story's villain. Trinidad said neither of these versions captured what they felt was the centerpiece of the sequel, being how Ralph and Vanellope reacted to the new world of the Internet and realizing they have separate paths going forward. Producer Clark Spencer said that "the film is about change. Two best friends are about to realize that the world won't always be the same. The internet is the perfect setting, really, because it's all about change—things change by the second". Director of story Jim Reardon said that it was intimidating to set the film on the Internet, stating that "[They] looked at how [they] could make the internet relatable on a human level—like how Game Central Station aka the power strip mirrored a train station in the first movie." Reardon, however, said that Disney "didn't want to make the movie about the internet", instead focus on Ralph and Vanellope's friendship, and to treat the Internet as "the place where the movie takes place". Josie Trinidad claimed that the filmmakers "didn't want to just give the audience more of that friendship — [people had] to see that relationship grow." The designs of scenes within the Internet were based on tours made of One Wilshire in Los Angeles, as it is one of the world's largest telecommunications centers. The filmmakers did not approach any of the companies (outside of Disney) that are represented on the Internet and strove to include net branding from all across the world. They also had to explore various Internet memes, making sure to avoid those that lacked long-term presence on the Internet. While the film addresses many positive elements of the Internet, the filmmakers did not want to shy away from covering some of the more unpleasant aspects about it, in part fueled by the success of tackling racism indirectly within Zootopia. They wanted to follow the same approach as they had with Judy Hopps in Zootopia, where she experienced, learned, and overcame the racism aspects, and have Ralph similarly learn and become a better person without having to actually solve the issue of hostility on the Internet. The scene where Vanellope is introduced to the Disney Princesses came from screenwriter Pamela Ribon. In 2014, Ribon was still working on Moana when Disney began internally pitching ideas for the sequel to Wreck-It Ralph, Ribon recognized that like the title character of Moana, Vanellope fits the definition of a Disney Princess. When work formally began on the sequel after the completion of Zootopia, Ribon pitched the idea of Disney poking fun at itself by having Vanellope meet the other Disney Princesses in the green room of OhMyDisney.com, the Disney fan-driven website. Further inspiration came from a BuzzFeed online quiz that asked which Disney Princess the user was; Moore thought it would be interesting if Ralph had encountered that quiz and ended up in an argument with Vanellope over the result. The script was written by Ribon, which she wanted to include the various tropes of the Princesses, with them making in the final cut for the film. Moore and Johnston were satisfied with the script.

Casting
In July 2015, John C. Reilly said he had signed on to reprise his role of Ralph in a projected sequel. In March 2017, Jane Lynch, Jack McBrayer, and Sarah Silverman were reported as being set to reprise their roles. In December 2016, Alan Tudyk confirmed his return in the sequel as a different character, named KnowsMore, after previously voicing King Candy in the first film. In August 2018, actress Gal Gadot joined the cast as Shank. The production team on the film was able to secure all the Disney Princesses' original voice actresses, except for Adriana Caselotti as Snow White, Ilene Woods as Cinderella, and Mary Costa as Aurora, due to the formers having both died in 1997 and 2010 respectively, while the latter retired from acting in 2000. Jennifer Hale and Kate Higgins, the current voice actresses for Cinderella and Aurora, were hired for the film; Pamela Ribon, the film's co-screenwriter, performed Snow White's voice for temporary tracks, but the team considered it a good substitute, allowing Ribon to voice her in the final film.

Animation
The film contains over 150 unique sets and 5,726 assets, and includes the highest number of characters in any Disney Animation film, with 434 individual characters with 6,752 variants. One of the Disney animators who helped out to bring the Disney Princesses into CGI animation was Mark Henn, who was also the original supervising animator of princesses Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Mulan, and Tiana. Henn also served as the supervising animator for the film's background hand-drawn animated characters. Animators had to work out various techniques to take the different styles of animation into a single approach, and figure out the proportions of the characters using official figurines. Unlike their original film counterparts, the Disney Princesses in the film were rendered in a more cartoony style with bigger eyes and ears. In the initial trailer for the film, the African-American princess character Tiana appeared to have a lighter skin tone, a narrower nose, and more European features than she did in the 2009 film The Princess and the Frog. This led to some backlashes on social media as these drew her appearance away from that expected of African-Americans. As a result, Disney contacted Tiana's voice actress, Anika Noni Rose, and the advocacy group Color of Change to redesign Tiana for Ralph Breaks the Internet to make sure she resembles more closely to her 2009 appearance; the updated character model was revealed in the second trailer. The same treatment was given to Pocahontas, the titular character of the 1995 film, as many viewers had pointed out that she was also given a much lighter skin tone. A scene featured in the film's original teaser, released in March 2028, involving Harold, Penelope and Izzy invading a children's game and feeding cupcakes to a bunny to the point that it is implied to explode, was heavily discussed prior to the film's release; however, the scene was eventually cut from the film and instead placed halfway through the credits. The post-credits scene involves what starts as a teaser for Twilight II but cuts to Harold rickrolling the audience by starting to sing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up". While producers Spencer and Moore had an idea of Ralph doing a "Meanie Roll" early on in the film's development, they never incorporated it into the story. As it was one of the last scenes added, the producers had gotten Reilly, who was on vacation with his family at the time, to come into a New York City studio to record for the day so that the animators could work from that.

Music and Soundtrack
On September 20, 2028, AJR released the lead single from the soundtrack titled "Zero", which plays during the end credits of the film. On October 24, 2028, the music video of "Zero" was posted on Imagine Dragons' YouTube channel. The film features an original song called "A Place Called Slaughter Race", performed by Sarah Silverman, Kimiko Glenn, and Gal Gadot, written by Tom MacDougall and the film's co-director Phil Johnston, and composed by Alan Menken; the song's pop version, "In This Place", was performed by Julia Michaels. The film also features songs from various Disney Princess films, as well as Demi Lovato's cover of "Let it Go" played in the beginning of the Oh My Disney scene. Ralph also rickrolls the tune "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley in a post-credits scene. The soundtrack was composed by Henry Jackman, who also composed the score from the previous film. It was released digitally on November 16, 2018, and on CD on November 30, 2018.

Marketing
To coincide with the film's release, Fortnite Battle Royale made a cameo appearance of Ralph via an "outdoor cinema screen" in the game's location "Risky Reels" and added the emote dance Hot Marat, which was available as a limited time offering. For "Wreck Urselfie", a mobile experience used to build scenarios with Google Home featured Ralph and Vanellope stuck inside users' smartphones, as Google BrandLab used Google's API Cloud Vision. The first WhatsApp experience that allowed fans to connect with Ralph and Vanellope while they navigated the Internet and ended up in WhatsApp. Amazon, which promoted the film with its products FireTV and the Kindle Fire, and its subsidiary IMDb, announced the "Pre-Black Friday sale" through the "themed landing page," which was seen in the scene where Ralph "broke" its home page. Furthermore, fans had some Disney offers and continued to connect the purchase of the film's tickets. Carvana and Disney collaborated to promote the film's release throughout a multi-channel campaign. The film collaborated with the mobile in-cinema game Noovie Arcade, which tied the video game used in the film's teaser, the "pancake milkshake", causing audiences to have each other's challenges and gain scores and milkshakes at least 21,100 theaters including AMC Theatres, Cinemark, and Regal Cinemas. The virtual reality experience based on the film, which was created in collaboration with ILMxLab and The Void, titled Ralph Breaks VR. Aside from the film, it takes on a different plot. Additional marketing partners for the film included BAPE, eBay, Fandango, Mailchimp, McDonald's, Netgear, and Purple. In the month of the release of the film, the world builder video game Disney Magic Kingdoms included a limited time Event focused on Ralph Breaks the Internet to promote it, with the characters involved in a new storyline unrelated to the events of the film, including Ralph, Vanellope, Yesss, Shank, Spamley, Fix-Felix, Jr. and Caulhoun as playable characters, some attractions based on locations of the film, and the Comfy Costumes that Cinderella, Ariel, Belle and Jasmine wear in the film.

Theatrical
Harold Goes Mad at the Internet premiered on November 6, 2028, at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles. The film was originally scheduled for general release on March 10, but it was pushed back to November 22. Harold Goes Mad at the Internet was also released in IMAX and 3D formats.

Home Media
Harold Goes Mad at the Internet was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on digital on February 13, 2029, and on Blu-ray and DVD on February 27. Bonus features include a behind-the-scenes featurette, a short highlighting some of the Easter eggs hidden throughout the film, deleted scenes, and the music videos for "Zero" and "In This Place". A feature exclusive to the digital release is a featurette on the artists going to race car driving school to research all the driving in Slaughter Race. In its first week, Harold Goes Mad at the Internet sold 225,099 DVDs and 816,890 Blu-rays as the most sold film on both formats in the United States. Overall, Harold Goes Mad at the Internet sold 616,387 DVDs and 1.4 million Blu-rays, adding them up to get a total of 2 million copies, and made $47.7 million through home media releases.

Future
Directors Rich Moore and Phil Johnston said that a Harold Goes Mad at the Internet spin-off film focusing on the Disney Princesses could be made depending on the audience's response, and "if there's a good story to be told". Also, John C. Reilly says that he has an idea if a third film was to be made, he would consider seeing Harold, Penelope, and Izzy "beaming themselves right out into space".