Totally Spies! (film)

Totally Spies! is a 2000 American animated action comedy film produced by Marathon Media and Fox Animation Studios for 20th Century Fox and was the final film for Fox Animation Studios. The film was directed by David Michael from a screenplay by Alicia Kirk and a story by Chris McKenna and Ken Kaufman, and stars the voices of Jennifer Hale, Andrea Baker, Peri Gilpin, Ron Perlman, John Rhys-Davies, Roseanne Barr, Patrick Warburton, Mark DeCarlo and Jeffrey Garcia. It follows the three teenage girls from Beverly Hills who become spies.

Michael envisioned the story in 1993, which was based on his dream of himself finding a Undercover Spy Tower that "sucked him into Undercover Agents Place". He then began developing the film after production had finished on Kassai and Leuk (1996) and wrote the original story with Chalvon-Demersay to pitch it to 20th Century Fox, with Kirk on writing the screenplay. Following Kirk's first draft, Chris Mckenna, Ken Kaurfman, and Thomas Hart were brought in to reconstruct the third act and add additional material, while the latter was selected to co-direct. The 20th Century Fox animation team drew inspiration for Totally Spies!'s urban design from major cities including New York City, Seattle, and London. Danny Elfman and Alan Silvestri composed the film's score.

Totally Spies! premiered at the London Film Festival on June 9, 2000, and was released in the United States on July 7, 2000. It received fox acclaim from critics and was a box office success, grossing $742.5 million worldwide on its $85 million budget, making it the sixth highest-grossing film of 2000. Totally Spies! won the 2000 Annie Award for Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production for Andrea Baker, for his voice performance as Clover, and was also nominated for an Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Animated Feature, but lost to Dreamworks/Aardman Chicken Run. The film's success helped spawn an expanded franchise, with three sequels — Totally Spies! 2, Totally Spies! 1 1/2, and Totally Spies! 3 — Two Spin-Off — Mandy franchise and Blue Sky Britney — and a television series.

Plot
The movie begins with Rob Hearthrob is getting ready for his concert. His hair is styled with a blond tuft, but when his cheek mole blinks mysteriously, he suddenly has a blank stare, and walks out of the venue. Meanwhile, the band is on stage and everyone is shocked to find that Rob is not there. As a light beam shines on Rob, he smiles and says "Fabulous" and is lifted up in the air.

Samantha, Alexandra, and Clover starting their new lives in Beverly Hills, California. Sam is stunned to find that the bookstore does not sell books. Clover is rejected by a Haute couture shoe store when she inquires about pair of Yves Mont Blanc boots. Alex is overwhelmed by a high-tech gym. As each of them were about to cross paths outside of a sushi restaurant, nearby secret agents (including Jerry Lewis) purposely cause the giant sushi roll above the entrance to break off and chase after them. The three girls are able to avoid it while saving the life of a pig (whom Alex later adopts and names "Oinky" Later in Season 6) and destroy the sushi roll before it causes any damage.

After that, the girls introduce themselves to each other and this starts their friendship when they see each other at Beverly Hills High. They meet the principal Scritch, who is not impressed by Sam, thinking she is a grade grubber. They meet the super-popular girl Mandy, who seems friendly at first, but soon tricks them into getting sprayed by a chai vending machine. Clover presents new friends a change of clothes, but they find themselves sucked into a locker and down a chute to one of the offices of WOOHP. They meet Jerry and a WOOHP agent Tad. Jerry reveals that WOOHP had been observing the three of them secretly since childhood, showing videos of each girl, and picking them as prime recruits for the organization. However, the girls are quick to reject the invite. However, they later are conscripted into training after each having traumatic experiences that relate to WOOHP. They go through the rigorous 48 hour training which involves martial arts, surveillance, bomb defusion, and taking down a giant robot.

In the WOOHP Submarine, Jerry briefs the girls on their first mission: People around town have been disappearing, including rock star Rob Hearthrob and animal psychologist Peppy Wolfman. As Jerry introduces the Gadgets to the girls, Clover provides some suggestions as to the design of their Catsuits, and he agrees to go with the color scheme they have used ever since. When they sneak into Wolfman's office, they find camera footage that shows that he left and then came back with a new look. Later, they follow a crowd of people to a store where they are seeking makeovers using the Fabulizer. They report their findings to Jerry and Tad, and must rush back to school by WOOHP Jet. On the way, they are attacked by another person in a fighter jet, and are able to fend him off. At school, they evade Madame Scritch as they sneak back for their trigonometry test.

The next day, the girls discover that the Bev High students have all been Fabulized. Jerry, who is undercover as a cafeteria cook, tells them they all underwent the treatment and that they should track one of the students to see who is behind it. They agree to tail Mandy, but then Madame Scritch arrives and catches Sam for vandalizing the school (Sam had used a Laser Lipstick to cut an escape hole in the wall, but left a strand of her red hair at the scene). That night, they sneak into Mandy's room but she rolls out of bed and starts sleepwalking. As they follow her, they find that the Fabulized people are converging to a mountain crater where they are beamed aboard a spaceship. The girls follow and disguise themselves as Fabulized people as they are transported to a strange space station that looks more like a luxury community. They meet the mastermind behind the entire affair, Fabu, a runway model who quickly lost fame in five minutes when he had a wardrobe malfunction during his debut. When Alex makes an outburst, the Spies are captured by Fabu's strongest henchman, Yuri. He then relates his entire plan, to gather his Fabulized people to live in his Fabtopia, and to destroy the Earth. He uses the Fabulizer in reverse to "un-Fabulize" the girls, giving them horrible makeovers: Sam's skin turns green, Clover grows a large dark brown unibrow, and Alex gets massive acne. He puts the girls in container rockets to be sent back to Earth. But just as he leaves, Tad arrives, but instead of helping the girls, he aims to stop Fabu himself and take all the credit, so that he can regain his "favorite agent" status with Jerry.

Tad loses his fight with Fabu and is strapped to a missile bound for Earth. Alex frees herself and the other girls just in time. After undo the effects of the Un-Fabulizer, they reach Tad but are unable to stop his missile from launching and heading to Earth. The girls are able to destroy the navigation system for the missile but now it is heading straight for the space station. Jerry arrives just in time in his Spaceplane. They rescue Tad, and then return to the station where they break Fabu's signal beacon in his staff, and evacuate the people before the missile explodes and destroys the station in a firework finale. Using their Jetpack Backpacks they chase Fabu down.

During the Chase, Alex tells Sam it is time to let Fabu go, but the Fabu overhears this. Enraged, He chases the group to a construction site. Clover attempts to distract the Fabu so she can dynamite it, but the Fabu notices and attacks him. Sam fights it off with an excavator and Alex is given the dynamite. While Clover distracts the Fabu, Sam and Alex climb to the top of a crane, and Sam throws the dynamite into the Floor, causing the Spaceship to explode. The trio then see Peppy Wolfman before she ascends into the afterlife. Clover apologizes to Peppy Wolfman for his losses, but Peppy Wolfman thanks the teenage girls for freeing him from being fabulous for 2 months.

After the mission, Jerry congratulates the girls. He says that Yuri and Tad have been placed in the WOOHP Prison and that everyone who was rescued from Fabu's space station have been restored to normal and their memories of being Fabulized erased. Alex gets a call from Wolfman who invites her to talk about animals and her pig. Clover then gets a call from Rob who heard she is a big fan of his poetry and wants to serenade her over dinner. Sam does not get such a treat, but when she returns to school to face her detention, she is surprised to find the school has a new principal who is not aware of any of her shenanigans, and actually likes Sam and her academic abilities. She wonders where Scritch is (she was transferred to a different school in an icy region where she has to teach in an igloo). The girls get even with Mandy by having her unleash a foam grenade. As they are called to another mission, the girls are quick to bring up personal appointments, but soon find themselves running from a WOOHP jet as it prepares to suck them aboard. But the girls are ready for their mission as they change into their spy uniforms and exclaim their friendship as the movie ends.

In the post-credits scene, Fabu is frozen and is peed by the rabbit.

Development
David Michel came up with the concept for Totally Spies! in 1993 during the production of Kassai and Leuk, in which MIchel directed. He envisioned a story where the three girls gets sucked into Undercover Offices that leads them to become a spy. Michel's original inspiration was from a dream he had of himself finding a One Court Square Building that "sucked him into Undercover offices". Michel also took inspiration from the 1982 Disney film Tron, where the protagonist Kevin Flynn gets transported inside the world of a mainframe computer, where he interacts with programs in his attempt to escape.

Michel began work on the film with Vincent Chalvon-Demersay in 1995, shortly after The Secret World of Santa Claus finished production. By mid 1996, Michel had drafted a treatment with Chalvon-Demersay that bore some resemblance to the final film. Michel and Chalvon-Demersay pitched the story to 20th Century Fox through its feature animation division with some initial artwork in February that year. He and his story team left with some suggestions in hand and returned to pitch a refined version of the story in April. The film was originally developed under the title of Top Secret!, but was changed in order to distance it from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Secret! the 1984 movie with the same name]. In addition to Top Secret!, other titles that had also been considered included Sam, Ace of Spies, The Six Million Dollar Woman, The Avengers Girls and Mission: Possible, among others.

In June 1996, the Los Angeles Times reported that Michel was working on a then-untitled project that would eventually become Totally Spies!, albeit nothing else about the film was known at the time. In July 1997, 20th Century Fox revealed the film's title to be Totally Spies!, then planned for a late 1999 release. In addition, it would be animated with traditional hand-drawn animation that had been done with FAS's two prior films. In April 1998, production of the film officially began, and Bob Gordon, joined to co-direct the film with Michel. The film was produced concurrently with All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, another animated film that animated with traditional hand-drawn animation, which was released four years before Totally Spies!. Chalvon-Demersay defended the film, saying that "any similarities are mere coincidence. We've been open with the Hanna-Barbera people so we don't step on each other's toes."

Writing
Willard Carroll, who had just finished work on The Runestone, was attracted to write the script for Totally Spies!, and began developing a treatment in May 1995. In its earliest stages, the story was very different from the final film, in which the character of Sam and Clover (known at this stage as Anndi and Renée) was being a spy, where he must stop Star Vapphire (a parody of DC Supervillian Star Sapphire) from taking over the world and kidnapping a "Blue Agent" named Mike (who later became Tad), the love interest of Anndi. Sam's Another partner and friends, Alex, had not yet been added. Through various drafts, Anndi's occupation went back-and-forth from being a teenager and from favourite Sunglasses, until his final incarnation as a teenage Smart.

More coming soon!

Casting
During the time, when 20th Century Fox was looking for a younger actor for the voice role of Samantha, Wendy Hoopes was considered for the character. He screen tested for the role and was interested, but when David Micheal was unable to make contact with those three, he took it as a "no". In addition to Berry, Amy Davidson who subsequently accepted the role in Cartoon Network TV Movie Firebreather, was also considered for the role of Samantha. Michel took the role to Jennifer Hale, who was appearing in the daytime comedy The Chimp Channel, and he accepted.

For the role of Clover, Amy Davidson, Nicole Sullivan, Tia Texada and Beverly D'Angelo were considered, but Andrea Baker won the role for her comedy. In March 1999, it was announced Hale and Baker were cast, along with other cast members including Peri Gilpin, Ron Perlman, John Rhys-Davies, Roseanne Barr, Patrick Warburton, Mark DeCarlo and Jeffrey Garcia.

Initially, Michel wanted Mark Hamill for the voice of Rob Hearthrob. Hamill was approached about voicing the character. However, in 1998, before production on the animation began, Hamill left the film due to being busy on other projects. Instead, he was replaced by Jeff Bennett.

Animation
Computeropolis was animated in-house at Bardel Entertainment headquarters at Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Music

 * Main article: Totally Spies! (film)/Soundtrack

The film's original score was composed by Danny Elfman and Alan Silvestri, It also marks the first 20th Century Fox animated film to be scored by two composers. The soundtrack album was released on July 4, 2000, by Varèse Sarabande.

More coming soon!

Release

 * Main article: Totally Spies! (film)/Release dates

''Totally Spies! ''premiered at the London Film Festival on June 9, 2000, and opened in theaters on July 7, 2000, in the United States and Canada. The film was rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) for "action violence and brief suggestive material. ". According to LaRoque, he wanted the film, along with some other 20th Century Fox animated films, to be more targeted towards viewers of ages 8-10+, similar to animated comedy series such as The Simpsons and Beavis and Butt-Head but without violence, sexual or drug-related. In the United Kingdom, it received a PG rating by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) for "mild language, slapstick, and comic violence." (added on the post-2005 re-issues). In Australia, the film was rated PG by the Australian Classification Board (ACB). More Coming Soon.