| WARNING:
This article is a non-fanon page. Non-fanon means it is not fanmade. Fanon information is allowed only in individual paragraphs with words "Idea Wiki" and/or "Fanon" in them. |
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is a 2017 American animated superhero comedy film based on Dav Pilkey's children's novel series, titled Captain Underpants, produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film was directed by David Soren from a screenplay by Nicholas Stoller, and stars the voices of Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, Nick Kroll, Thomas Middleditch, Jordan Peele, and Kristen Schaal, the film was released during the 20th anniversary of the Captain Underpants series. In the film, two fourth-grade pranksters, named George and Harold, hypnotize their humorless principal, named Mr. Krupp, into thinking he is a superhero, named Captain Underpants. The film loosely adapts the first, the second, the fourth, and the eleventh Captain Underpants books. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie first premiered at the Regency Village Theatre, in Los Angeles, California, in the United States, on May 21, 2017, and was first released theatrically in theatres, in the United States, on June 2, 2017, in both the 2-D and the 3-D formats. The film received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the animation, humor, faithfulness, and references to its source material, and voice acting. It grossed $125 million worldwide against a budget for $38 million, the lowest budget for a film from DreamWorks Animation, until 2021, with Spirit Untamed, which had a budget for $30 million. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie was one of the last films from DreamWorks Animation to be distributed by 20th Century Fox, following the acquisition of DreamWorks Animation by both Comcast and NBCUniversal in 2016. Universal Pictures began distributing films from DreamWorks Animation beginning from 2019 with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. A spin-off television series, titled The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants, premiered on Netflix on July 13, 2018, while a spin-off film, titled Dog Man, was released by Universal Pictures on January 31, 2025.
Plot[]
n Piqua, Ohio, best friends and next-door neighbors George Beard and Harold Hutchins create comic books, their latest creation being a superhero named Captain Underpants. They are fourth-graders at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, where their excessive pranks to cheer up their fellow students put them at odds with their cruel principal Benjamin Krupp. One day, they tamper with their classmate Melvin Sneedly's invention, the Turbo Toilet 2000, to lift the other students' spirits, but Mr. Krupp uses one of Melvin's other inventions to record the boys enacting the prank. He prepares to put George and Harold in separate classes in hopes of ending their friendship. George hypnotizes Mr. Krupp using a 3-D Hypno-Ring from a cereal box before Mr. Krupp can sign the papers to separate George and Harold. They command Mr. Krupp to become Captain Underpants, leading him to cause trouble around town. After taking him to their treehouse, the boys discover that they can turn Captain Underpants back into Mr. Krupp by splashing water on him and back into Captain Underpants by snapping their fingers. To keep Mr. Krupp from separating them, they convince Captain Underpants that Mr. Krupp is his secret identity. His change in personality attracts the attention of the school's shy lunch lady Edith. Meanwhile, Professor Pee-Pee Diarrheastein Poopypants, Esq. is hired as the school's new science teacher, though George and Harold are suspicious of his violent behavior. Poopypants, who invented a Nobel Prize-winning "sizerator", is sick of never being taken seriously due to his name, and seeks to eliminate all laughter. With Captain Underpants as principal, the school becomes a livelier place, but a rainstorm turns Captain Underpants back into Mr. Krupp, who officially places George and Harold in separate classes. Poopypants and Melvin grow the Turbo Toilet 2000, power it with Edith's toxic leftovers, and use it to attack the school. Poopypants uses Melvin's brain, which lacks the part that causes laughter, to power a ray that turns the students into dull, humorless zombies. Captain Underpants tries to stop them but, having no superpowers, is thrown into the toxic waste. George and Harold are captured, but the power of a joke that made them friends in kindergarten overloads the Turbo Toilet 2000, returning the kids to normal and trapping Melvin in giant toilet paper. The toxic leftovers give Captain Underpants real superpowers and, with George and Harold's help, he defeats and shrinks Poopypants, who escapes on a bee. Unable to control Captain Underpants forever, George and Harold destroy the Hypno-Ring to permanently change him back into Mr. Krupp, but swear to remain friends. However, after realizing that Mr. Krupp would be nicer if he had friends, they set him and Edith up on a date, causing Krupp to have a change of heart and return the comics he confiscated from George and Harold. Meanwhile, the toxic waste from the Turbo Toilet 2000 transforms the toilets at a scrapyard into an army of Talking Toilets, which attack the restaurant where Mr. Krupp and Edith are dining. After unwittingly snapping his fingers, Mr. Krupp is once again transformed into Captain Underpants, to Edith's surprise and admiration, and he flies away with George and Harold to face their next adventure together.
Production[]
DreamWorks Pictures and DreamWorks Animation first interested the film rights to the Captain Underpants series dates back to when the first installment was published in 1997, but creator Dav Pilkey did not want to sell them. Early pitches for an adaptation included video games, animated and live-action films, an animated series, and a live-action series. To persuade him, DreamWorks Pictures and DreamWorks Animation gave Pilkey a tour around the studio with everyone wearing underpants over their trousers, which made him laugh. In October 2011, his representatives indicated Pilkey was ready, and DreamWorks Animation won the rights in an auction. In October 2013, Rob Letterman was announced as director and Nicholas Stoller as scriptwriter. The two had previously worked together on the film Gulliver's Travels. In January 2014, the cast was announced; Ed Helms as Captain Underpants / Mr. Krupp, Kevin Hart as George Beard, Thomas Middleditch as Harold Hutchins, Nick Kroll as the "insidious villain" Professor Poopypants, and Jordan Peele as George and Harold's "nerdy nemesis" Melvin Sneedly. Director David Soren screened the film at the 2017 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. In 2014, DreamWorks Animation announced a January 2017 release date. Following DreamWorks Animation's reorganization in early 2015, the studio announced that the film would be produced outside of the studio's pipeline at a significantly lower cost. It was instead animated at Mikros Image in Montreal, Canada, and at Technicolor Animation Productions in France, and therefore looks identical to Pilkey's original drawing style, as well as differently than many of the DreamWorks Pictures and DreamWorks Animation films.[16] A month later, Letterman left the project but came back as an executive producer, and David Soren, the director of Turbo, entered talks to direct the film. During production, Pilkey got to work closely with Soren. He was relieved that Soren was directing since he was a fan of Turbo. In an interview with Los Angeles Times, Pilkey said: "Once I met David, it was like a huge load fell off my back; I was like, 'I don't even have to think about this anymore. Just send me a couple of tickets to the premiere.'" Commenting back, Soren said, "In a way, the controversy over the books ended up being liberating for the film. Normally on an animated movie, you're trying to appeal to every possible demographic, and often that results in your content being watered down a little bit. Obviously, we hope we get as wide of an audience as possible. But it's likely that if people have issues with the books they may have issues with the movie too, and we didn't feel like we needed to waste a lot of time trying to rope them in. It allowed us to make the purest version of the movie." Soren also said that he took inspiration from John Hughes films. In an interview with MovieFreak, he mentioned.
Soundtrack[]
"Weird Al" Yankovic wrote and performed the theme song for the film, which was featured in a lyric video. Andy Grammer wrote another original song for the film, titled "A Friend Like You". The film also features music from Adam Lambert, Cold War Kids member Nathan Willett, and Lil Yachty.[19] An 11-track soundtrack album was released digitally on June 2, 2017, by Virgin Records and Deep Well Records.
All music composed by Theodore Shapiro, except as noted.
| No. | Title | Artist | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Captain Underpants Theme Song" | Weird Al Yankovic | 2:15 |
| 2. | "A Friend Like You" | Andy Grammer | 3:41 |
| 3. | "Saturday (Cast Version)" | Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch | 0:49 |
| 4. | "Think" | Adam Lambert | 3:00 |
| 5. | "1812 Ofarture" | The Students of Jerome Horwitz Elementary | 1:09 |
| 6. | "Hallelujah" | Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch | 0:40 |
| 7. | "Oh Yeah" | lil boat | 2:52 |
| 8. | "Saturday" | Nathan Willett of the Cold War Kids | 3:30 |
| 9. | "Comic Book Opening" | Theodore Shapiro | 1:55 |
| 10. | "Saving the Day" | Theodore Shapiro | 7:23 |
| 11. | "The Prank for Good" | Theodore Shapiro | 5:39 |
| Total length: | 52:46 | ||
Spin-off[]
On December 9, 2020, it was announced that a Dog Man movie was in development with Peter Hastings set to be the director.
Trivia[]
This is the final DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by Twentieth Century Fox.