Ralph Breaks the Internet (Sony version)

Ralph Breaks the Internet is a 2018 American animated comedy film produced by Sony Pictures Animation and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. It is the sequel to the 2012 film Wreck-It Ralph. The film is directed by Tony Leondis, written by Leondis, Eric Siegel and Genndy Tartakovsky from a story by Tartakovsky, and voices by Jack Black, Ginnifer Goodwin, Andy Samberg, Angelina Jolie, and Ed O'Neill reprise their character roles from the first film, and are joined by Jordana Brewster, Sofia Vergara, Will Forte, Jim Gaffigan, and Peter Dinklage as part of the new cast. In the film, Ralph (Black) and Vanellope von Schweetz (Goodwin) must travel to the Internet to get a replacement for the Sugar Rush cabinet's broken steering wheel and prevent Mr. Litwak (O'Neill) from disposing of the game.

Inspired by Leondis' love of Toy Story (1995), the first discussions about a sequel to Wreck-It Ralph began in July 2012, 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 2016 as Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 to be released on September 21, 2018 before being pushed forward for a July 2018 release date. Despite initially leaving the franchise due to his work on Popeye and Can You Imagine?, much of the original cast confirmed they had signed on, with new cast members added in 2018.

A references movie titled Hotel Transylvania: Escape 2 Internet (2018) was released on November 21, 2018.

Plot
Six years after the events of the first film, Ralph and Vanellope have stayed best friends, hanging out after work in Litwak Arcade. Ralph is content with their life, but Vanellope longs for excitement and expresses how bored she has become of Sugar Rush 'spredictability. To please her, Ralph sneaks into her game and makes a secret road. The next day, when Vanellope fights the arcade player's control to test the track, the cabinet's steering wheel breaks. As the company that made Sugar Rush is defunct, and the cost of a replacement wheel on eBay is too high, Litwak decides to scrap Sugar Rush and unplugs the game, leaving its citizens homeless. The Surge Protector finds homes for all Sugar Rush 's citizens as a short-term measure as they figure out how to save the game, with Felix and Calhoun adopting the racers. Remembering eBay, Ralph and Vanellope travel through Litwak'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. P. Spamley, who brokers items obtained from video games and offers them a lucrative job of stealing a car from Shank, the lead character in the popular racing-centered battle royale game Slaughter Race. They steal Shank'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 Ralph and uploads it to video-sharing site BuzzzTube. She directs them to BuzzzTube's head algorithm, Yesss, who capitalizes on Ralph's video popularity. They decide to make more videos, which will earn them the money for the wheel if they attract enough views. Vanellope offers to help advertise the videos, and Ralph has Yesss send her to Sony Pictures Fun Zone. There, while being chased by Stormtroopers for advertising on the site, Vanellope befriends the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic characters, 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. Ralph makes enough money to buy the wheel but finds Vanellope talking with Shank, overhearing how she wants to stay in Slaughter Race, having felt at home there due to its relative novelty and unpredictability compared to Sugar Rush.

Worried of losing his friend forever, Ralph asks Spamley for a way to draw Vanellope out of the game and is brought to the dark web vendor Double Dan, who provides Ralph with a virus, Arthur, that feeds off insecurities and replicates them. When Ralph unleashes Arthur into Slaughter Race, it replicates Vanellope's glitch, triggering a server reboot. Ralph, Shank, and the others help Vanellope escape before the game resets. Vanellope blames herself for the crash, but Ralph confesses to her that the crash was actually his fault. Outraged by this reveal, an argument breaks out, culminating in Vanellope throwing away Ralph's cookie medal and running off.

As a guilt-ridden Ralph finds his now-cracked-in-half medal, Arthur copies Ralph's insecurities and makes duplicates of Ralph. The clones overrun the Internet in a global DoS attack, all chasing after Vanellope to keep her for themselves. Ralph saves her and attempts to lure the clones into a firewall, but they form a giant Ralph monster, Ralphzilla, that seizes them both. Ralph comes to accept that Vanellope can make her own choices, letting go of his insecurities. This also causes Ralphzilla and the clones to disappear, and Ralph and Vanellope reconcile. Ralph gives half of the broken medal to Vanellope and they bid each other a heartfelt farewell as Shank has arranged for Vanellope to respawn in Slaughter Race.

Back in the arcade, Sugar Rush is repaired, and Ralph partakes in social activities with the other arcade characters as he stays in touch with Vanellope over video chat, feeling content with his newfound ability to be independent.

Voice cast

 * Jack Black as Ralph, a gigantic but soft-hearted man who is the antagonist of the arcade game Fix-It Felix Jr.
 * Ginnifer Goodwin as Vanellope von Schweetz, a glitchy racer who is the main character and princess of Sugar Rush and Ralph's best friend.
 * Jordana Brewster as Shank, a tough and talented NPC racer in Slaughter Race.
 * Sofia Vergara as Yesss, 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.
 * Andy Samberg as Felix, a repairman who is the protagonist and playable character of Fix-It Felix Jr., as well as the husband of Calhoun.
 * Angelina Jolie as Sergeant Calhoun, the lead character of Hero's Duty and Felix's wife.
 * Will Forte as KnowsMore, a character representing a search engine of the same name, with an overly aggressive autofill. The character design was mainly inspired by stylized character designs found in Disney shorts and TV specials done in the mid-1960s by Ward Kimball and Marc Davis.
 * Jim Gaffigan as J. P. Spamley, a personification of clickbait pop-up ads represented as a desperate salesman who cannot make a sale
 * Peter Dinklage as Double Dan, a half-worm virus creator who inhabits the dark web.
 * Dinklage also voices Double Dan's conjoined brother Little Dan.
 * Ed O'Neill as Mr. Litwak, owner of Litwak's Family Fun Center & Arcade.

The voice actresses from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic television series – Tara Strong as Twilight Sparkle, Ashleigh Ball as Rainbow Dash and Applejack, Tabitha St. Germain as Rarity, and Andrea Libman as Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.

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, and Maurice LaMarche as Tapper.

Additionally, Melissa Villaseñor voices Taffyta Muttonfudge, one of the Sugar Rush racers, replacing Mindy Kaling from the first film; John DiMaggio voices Arthur, an insecurity virus; Sean Giambrone (English YouTuber Daniel Middleton/DanTDM in the UK version, but not on the UK home release) voices eBoy, an eBay employee who informs Ralph of the status on the eBay item deadline; Flula Borg voices Maybe, an algorithm who is an assistant to Yesss; 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 director Genndy Tartakovsky reprise their roles as Sour Bill, Zangief, and the Surge Protector, respectively. YouTube personalities Colleen Ballinger, Dani Fernandez, and Tiffany Herrera voice cameos, with Nicole Scherzinger having a cameo voice role in a mid-credits scene.

Popular culture cameos and references
Similar to the first film, Ralph Breaks the Internet includes a number of cameos and references to video games. The band Imagine Dragons (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.

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 Ralph clones, which forms a gigantic Ralph monster, resembles the King Kong character from various films. During production, the giant monster form was dubbed "Ralphzilla" after Godzilla.

Development
In July 2012, two months before Wreck-It Ralph was released, Genndy Tartakovsky said that there were already ideas for a sequel, and in January 2013, Tartakovsky said that he and Sony 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 Disney's Tron in the sequel, which appears briefly in the film, where Ralph and Vanellope race at the beginning. In December 2013, the first film's composer Mark Mothersbaugh said that a story for the sequel was being written.

In 2014, Tartakovsky stated that a sequel was still being planned and confirmed that he would not direct the film, since they were working on Tartakovsky's Can You Imagine?, even though he was originally too busy due to his developing an adaptation of Popeye. In June 2016, Sony Pictures Animation announced that the sequel would be released on September 21, 2018, with Tony Leondis attached, and that its story would be one where "Ralph leaves the arcade and wrecks the Internet".

In January 2017, the sequel's title was officially announced as Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2, with Leondis joined as director and Michelle Muddorcca also returning as producer. In Febraury 2018, Sony removed Wreck-It Ralph 2 from the film's title.