Bob Adams: Final Fate

Bob Adams: Final Fate (JPN: ボブ・アダムス：最終的な運命, literally Bob Adams: Final Destiny) is a 2006 animated film and a stand alone spinoff to A Penguin's Memories. Like with the original film, Garrett Fredrickson was a director for the movie, alongside Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence director Mamoru Oshii, while Mitsuhisa Ishikawa of Production I.G. along with Jerry Beck and Chris Jenkins produced the film. Marshall Efron, who voiced Bob Adams in the English dub of the original film, reprised his role for this movie, as did Lou Diamond Philips, while Hamilton Camp and Ruby Marlowe voice new characters. The animation for the movie was provided by Production I.G. and Polygon Pictures while Spyglass Entertainment, Red Wagon Entertainment, and Fredrickson's own Nightstorm Productions co-financed the movie, and it was distributed by Sony Pictures under TriStar Pictures and Destination Films.

Bob Adams: Final Fate was released to theaters on May 10th, 2006 in Japan and June 14th, 2006 in the United States, where it grossed $64.3 Million on a $30 million budget, and it received favorable reviews in the United States.

Plot
COMING SOON

Voices

 * Marshall Efron as Bob Adams
 * Hamilton Camp
 * Ruby Marlowe
 * Lou Diamond Philips as Jack. Philips was one of a few actors who reprised his role from the first film for this one.
 * Pat Hingle as The Librarian. Hingle voiced The Librarian in place of Burl Ives due to Ives' passing in 1993.
 * Gregory Snegoff as Mike (archival footage)
 * Debbie Reynolds as Jill (archival footage)
 * Sarah Michelle Gellar
 * Frank Welker
 * Kirk Thornton
 * Emma Thompson
 * Rupert Farley
 * Wallace Shawn
 * Donal Logue
 * Julia Roberts
 * Clancy Brown

Production
Fredrickson during the 1990s was interested in exploring a little more into Bob Adams' character, and was also interested in creating a story his fate. In the original film, Mike, due to his war flashbacks, defeated Bob Adams in a fight after he tried to keep Jill singing for money, and after Jill stopped Mike from beating him up, it ended up with Bob Adams being knocked out cold and he was never seen afterwards. In 2002, Fredrickson began developing ideas for the film, and after searching for what happened to the company that made the original Penguin's Memories, he learned that the company that did the original animation for the film, KK C&D Asia, ceased operations and most of their animators moved to Production I.G., and Fredrickson managed to get them on board with the animation for the film. Due to the company being larger than KK C&D Asia was, the animation for the film was given a major upgrade from the original, but it still carried the same style as the original film.

For the voices, Fredrickson managed to get in contact with some of the original voices for the film, including Marshall Efron, Bob Adams' English VA, Lou Diamond Philips also chose to reprise his role as Jack, and various other characters were voiced by newer actors, although Clancy Brown and Frank Welker, who had a few roles in A Penguin's Memories, did also provide some of the character voices for more minor characters, while Gregory Snegoff and Debbie Reynolds, who voiced Mike and Jill in the first movie, appeared through archival footage at the beginning of the movie.

Distribution
Unlike the first film, where it was very difficult to find distribution for the movie, it was easier for Fredrickson to get funding from Sony for distribution due to them previously distributing A Penguin's Memories through the TriStar label. However, this didn't come without a few problems; initially Sony wanted to release the film simply through Destination Films, but Fredrickson wanted to give the movie a wider release in theaters, so Sony obliged to this, and began a look into what company should release it, Screen Gems was considered, but the film was ultimately not in any genre Screen Gems tackled. Sony Pictures Classics was considered as well, but the film wasn't produced independently unlike the first movie. Eventually, Sony decided to have TriStar release the movie like they did with the original movie, Columbia Pictures wasn't considered despite owning sequel rights to older films by TriStar, but the film didn't seem like something Columbia would release.

Release
Bob Adams: Final Fate premiered at the Annecy International Film Festival like the original film did, and was later released to theaters on May 10th, 2006 in Japan, and on June 14th, 2006 in the United States. Like with the original movie, the film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA, however, by 2006, the MPAA rating system became more strict, thus making more sense why it was given a PG-13 rating.

Box Office
Bob Adams: Final Fate grossed $64.3 million on it's budget of $30 million. It was far more successful than the original in terms of box office mainly because Sony had more time to do proper promotion for the movie.

Critical Response
Bob Adams: Final Fate received favorable reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 71% based on 181 reviews, the site's critical consensus reads "Bob Adams: Final Fate might not offer the strongest of storytelling, but offers plenty of visuals pleasing on the eyes and a message that may even resonate with one of the more disinterested moviegoers". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 67 indicating "favorable reviews".

Roger Ebert gave the movie 3 and a half stars stating that "This is a film that truly shines as an animated film for older audiences, it doesn't try to shove every adult cliche it can throw out there, but like with it's predecessor, brings something that is both nice to listen to and carries a very heartfelt story."

Logo Variations

 * 1) TriStar Pictures - The version of the fanfare used on the VHS release of Sleepless in Seattle is used
 * 2) Destination Films - None

Home Media
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released Bob Adams: Final Fate on DVD/Blu-Ray on October 17th, 2006 while in Japan, the Japanese DVD was released by Pony Canyon, this R2 DVD carries both the Japanese dub and the English dub, similar with the US DVD, which contains the English version with a subtitled version of the Japanese dub. Sony's DVD contained a making of documentary on the film, an audio commentary, the film's trailers and TV spots, and deleted scenes.