The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 American animated comedy film based on the animated television series The Simpsons. The film was directed by David Silverman, and stars the regular television cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Tress MacNeille and Pamela Hayden. It features Albert Brooks as Russ Cargill, the evil head of the Environmental Protection Agency who intends to destroy Springfield after Homer pollutes the lake. As the townspeople exile him and eventually his family abandon him, Homer works to redeem his folly by stopping Cargill’s scheme.
Previous attempts to create a film version of The Simpsons had failed due to the lack of a script of appropriate length and production crew members. Eventually, producers James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Mike Scully, and Richard Sakai began development of the film in 2001. A writing team consisting of Scully, Jean, Brooks, Groening, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, Ian Maxtone-Graham and Matt Selman was assembled. They conceived numerous plot ideas, with Groening’s being the one developed into a film. The script was re-written over a hundred times, and this creativity continued after animation had begun in 2006. This meant hours of finished material was cut, which included cameo roles from Isla Fisher, Minnie Driver, Erin Brockovich, Edward Norton and Kelsey Grammer. Tom Hanks and Green Day appeared in the final cut as themselves.
Tie-in promotions were made with several companies, including Burger King and 7-Eleven, which transformed selected stores into Kwik-E-Marts. The film premiered in Springfield, Vermont, which had won the right to hold it through a competition organized by Fox. The film was a box office success, grossing over US$526 million. It received a significant majority of positive reviews, with some critics saying it was better than the latter seasons of the show.
Plot
While rock band Green Day are performing on Lake Springfield they are killed when the pollution in the lake erodes their barge. At a memorial service, Grampa has a prophetic vision in which he predicts the impending doom of the town, but only Marge takes it seriously. Lisa and an Irish boy named Colin, whom she has fallen in love with, hold a seminar where they attempt to convince the town to clean up the lake.
Meanwhile, Homer adopts a pig from a restaurant. Homer stores the pig’s feces in an overflowing silo and Marge tells him to dispose of it safely. However, Homer gets distracted and instead dumps the silo in the lake, re-polluting it. Moments later, a squirrel jumps into the lake and becomes severely mutated. Nearby, Flanders and Bart discover the squirrel during a hike, and the EPA captures it. Russ Cargill, head of the EPA, presents five options to President Schwarzenegger, who randomly picks the action of enclosing Springfield in a giant glass dome. When the police discover Homer’s silo in the lake, an angry mob of townspeople approach the Simpsons’ home but the family escapes through a sinkhole and flee to Alaska.
Cracks start to appear in the dome and Cargill, not wanting news of what he has done to become widespread, plans to destroy Springfield. In Alaska, the Simpsons see an advertisement for a new Grand Canyon to be located on the site that was Springfield. Marge and the kids decide to go and save the town, but Homer refuses to help the people who tried to kill them. The family abandon Homer and leave but are captured by the EPA and placed back in the dome. After a visit from a mysterious Inuit shaman, Homer has an epiphany and believes he must save the town in order to save himself.
Just as he arrives at Springfield to do so, a helicopter lowers a bomb suspended by rope through a hole in the dome. Homer climbs to the peak of the dome and descends the rope, knocking the escaping townspeople and bomb off. Homer grabs the bomb and a motorcycle. After reuniting with Bart, they cycle up the side of the dome and Bart throws the bomb through the hole, seconds before detonation. The bomb explodes, shattering the dome. The town praises Homer, who rides off with Marge on the motorcycle into the sunset. The townspeople begin restoring Springfield back to normal.
Production
The production staff had considered a film adaptation of The Simpsons since early in the series. The show’s creator, Matt Groening, felt a feature length film would allow them to increase the show’s scale and animate sequences too complex for a TV series.[2] He intended the film to be made after the show ended, “but that […] was undone by good ratings”.[3] There were attempts to adapt the fourth season episode “Kamp Krusty” into a film, but difficulties were encountered in expanding the episode to feature-length.[4] For a long time the project was held up. There was difficulty finding a story that was sufficient for a film, and the crew did not have enough time to complete such a project, as they already worked full time on the show.[5] Groening also expressed a wish to make Simpstasia, a parody of Fantasia; it was never produced, partly because it would have been too difficult to write a feature-length script.[6] Before his death, Phil Hartman had said he had wished to make a live action Troy McClure film, and several of the show’s staff had expressed a desire to help create it.[7]
The voice cast was signed on to do the film in 2001,[8] and work then began on the script.[9] The producers were initially worried that creating a film would have a negative effect on the series, as they did not have enough crew to focus their attention on both projects. As the series progressed, additional writers and animators were hired so that both the show and the film could be produced at the same time.[10] Groening and James L. Brooks invited back Mike Scully and Al Jean (who continued to work as showrunner on the television series) to produce the film with them.[11] They then signed David Silverman (who, in anticipation of the project, had quit his job at Pixar) to direct the film.[11] The “strongest possible” writing team were assembled, with many of the writers from the show’s early seasons being chosen.[10] David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, George Meyer, John Swartzwelder and Jon Vitti were selected. Ian Maxtone-Graham and Matt Selman joined later, and Brooks, Groening, Scully, and Jean also wrote parts of the script.[10] Sam Simon did not return having left the show over creative differences in 1993. Former writer Conan O’Brien wanted to work with the Simpsons staff again, joking that “I worry that the Simpsons-writing portion of my brain has been destroyed after 14 years of talking to Lindsay Lohan and that guy from One Tree Hill, so maybe it’s all for the best.”[12] The same went for director Brad Bird who said he had “entertained fantasies of asking if [he] could work on the movie”, but did not have enough time due to work on Ratatouille.[8] The producers arranged a deal with Fox that would allow them to abandon production of the film at any point if they felt the script was unsatisfactory.[13]
Work continued on the screenplay from 2003 onwards,[13] taking place in the small bungalow where Groening first pitched The Simpsons in 1987.[14] The writers spent six months discussing a plot,[15] and each of them offered sketchy ideas.[14] Jean suggested the family rescue manatees, which became the 2005 episode “Bonfire of the Manatees”, and there was also a notion similar to that of The Truman Show where the characters discovered their lives were a TV show. Groening rejected this, as he felt that the Simpsons should “never become aware of themselves as celebrities”.[8] Groening read about a town that had to get rid of pig feces in their water supply, which inspired the plot of the film.[11] The decision for Flanders to have in an important role also came early on, as Jean wished to see Bart wonder what his life would be like if Flanders were his father.[16] Having eventually decided on the basic outline of the plot for the film, the writers then separated it into seven sections. Jean, Scully, Reiss, Swartzwelder, Vitti, Mirkin, and Meyer wrote 25 pages each, and the group met one month later to merge the seven sections into one “very rough draft”.[10] The film’s script was written in the same way as the television series: the writers sitting around a table, pitching ideas and trying to make each other laugh.[13] The script went through over 100 revisions.[15] Groening described his desire to also make the film dramatically stronger than a TV episode, saying that he wanted to “give you something that you haven’t seen before”.[17]
Casting
For inspiration for the crowd scenes in the film, the production staff spent a long time looking at a poster that featured more than 320 Simpsons characters.[22] Groening said they tried to include every single character in the film, with 98 having speaking parts,[11] and most members of the crowds being previously established characters instead of generic people.[18] The series’ regular voice actors: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer, as well as semi-regular performers Tress MacNeille, Pamela Hayden, Marcia Wallace, Maggie Roswell, Russi Taylor and Karl Wiedergott, reprised their roles.[3] Joe Mantegna returned as Fat Tony,[23] while Albert Brooks, who supplied many guest voices in episodes, was hired as Russ Cargill,[10] after he told the staff that he wanted to be part of the film.[16] For “about a week”, he was to reprise the role of Hank Scorpio from the episode “You Only Move Twice”, but the staff felt that creating a new character was a better idea.[20]
The cast did the first of three table readings in May 2005,[24][3] and began recording every week from June 2006 until the end of production.[25] James L. Brooks directed them for the first time since the television show’s early seasons. Castellaneta found the recording sessions “more intense” than recording the television series, and “more emotionally dramatic”.[26] Some scenes, such as Marge’s video message to Homer, were recorded over one hundred times, leaving the voice cast exhausted.[16]
The writers had written the opening concert scene without a specific band in mind. Green Day were cast in that role having requested to guest star in the show. Tom Hanks also appears as himself in the film and accepted the offer after just one phone call.[16] Everybody Loves Raymond creator Philip Rosenthal provides the voice of the father in the “new Grand Canyon” commercial with Hanks.[18] Due to time restraints, several guests who had recorded parts were cut from the film. Minnie Driver recorded the part of a patronizing grievance counselor in a scene that ended up being cut.[27] Edward Norton recorded the part of the man who gets crushed as the dome is implemented, performing a Woody Allen impression. The staff felt the voice was too distracting, so Castellaneta re-recorded Norton’s dialogue with a different voice.[18] Isla Fisher and Erin Brockovich also recorded cameos, but their scenes were cut.[11] Kelsey Grammer recorded lines for Sideshow Bob, who was to appear at several different points,[18][20] but these scenes were also cut.[16] Johnny Knoxville was also touted as a possible guest star.[16]
Although he does not provide the voice, Arnold Schwarzenegger is President of the United States in the film. He was chosen instead of the incumbent President George W. Bush because then, “in two years […] the film [would be] out of date”.[15] Brooks was nervous about the idea, noting that “[Schwarzenegger’s] opinion polls were way down”, he said that they “were [hoping] he’d make a political comeback”.[2] The animators began by drawing an accurate caricature of Schwarzenegger,[16] but one of the staff instead suggested an altered version of recurring character Rainier Wolfcastle as President.[21] This idea was developed, with the design of Wolfcastle, himself also a caricature of Schwarzenegger, being given more wrinkles under his eyes and a different hairstyle.[16]
Editing
Every aspect of the film was constantly analyzed, with storylines, jokes and characters regularly being re-written.[18] Although most animated films do not make extensive changes to the film during active production due to budget restrictions,[8] The Simpsons Movie crew continued to edit their film into 2007, with some edits taking place as late as May, two months before the film was released.[18] James L. Brooks noted, “70 percent of the things in [one of the trailers]—based on where we were eight weeks ago—are no longer in the movie.”[22] Groening said that enough material for two more movies was cut.[14] Various new characters were created, and then cut because they did not contribute enough.[8] Originally Marge was the character who had the prophetic vision in church. The writers however considered this to be too dark and it was changed to Grampa.[18] The role of Lisa’s love interest Colin was frequently revised. He was previously named Dexter and Adrien, and his appearance was completely altered.[16] One idea was to have Milhouse act as Lisa’s love interest, but the writers realized “the audience was not as familiar with [his] long-standing crush on [Lisa] as [they had] thought”.[18] A car chase in which Homer throws flaming mummies out of a truck at the EPA was replaced with “more emotional and realistic” scenes at the motel and carnival that allowed for a change of pace.[18]
Further changes were made after the March 2007 preview screenings of the film in Portland, Oregon and Phoenix, Arizona.[18] This included the deletion of Kang and Kodos heavily criticizing the film during the end credits.[11] A lot of people at the screenings found the original film too coarse, and some of Homer’s behavior too unkind, so several scenes were toned down to make him appear nicer.[18] Russ Cargill was re-designed several times, originally appearing as an older man whose speech patterns Albert Brooks based on Donald Rumsfeld. The older model was the one used by Burger King for the action figure.[18] Cargill’s scene with Bart and Homer at the film’s conclusion was added in to fully resolve his story, and the “Spider-Pig” gag was also a late addition.[16] One excised scene, before the dome is put over Springfield, had Mr. Burns reminding viewers that it was the last point in the film that they could get a refund.[18] Other deletions included Homer’s encounter with a sausage truck driver, a scene with Plopper the pig at the end,[28] and several musical numbers that appeared throughout.[18] A news report, showing the dome’s effect on daily life in Springfield in areas such as farming and sport, was cut because it did not fit the overall context of the film.[18]
