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50% Hero. 100% Cotton
―Tagline


The Captain Underpants Movie is a 2017 American 3D computer-animated superhero comedy film that is DreamWorks's 35th film, based on the children's novel series of the same name by David Pilkey. Produced by DreamWorks Animation and Scholastic Entertainment, and animated by Mikros Image, it is being directed by David Soren, and produced by Mireille Soria and Mark Swift. The screenplay is by Nicholas Stoller. Dave Pilkey will be the executive producer. It features the voices of Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, Thomas Middleditch, Nick Kroll, and Jordan Peele. It has been released on June 2, 2017.[1] This was the last DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by 20th Century Studios, starting with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World in 2019. On July 13, 2018, A show based on the film called The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants began streaming on Netflix.

DreamWorks Animation announced on October 19, 2011 that they had acquired the rights to make a film based on the series. DreamWorks had been attempting to secure the rights since the series was first published in 1997, but Pilkey wasn't interested.[2] However, after seeing "the subtle way that morality and personal responsibility were handled" in How to Train Your Dragon and the Kung Fu Panda movies, he realized a film could "properly convey what he was trying to do with the books".[3]

The film was a critical and box office success, grossing $125 million worldwide against its $38 million budget.

Storyline[]

Captain Underpants is based on Dav Pilkey’s popular book series and centers around two mischievous and scheming fourth graders, George Beard and Harold Hutchins, who hypnotized their principal Mr. Krupp into thinking he is a kind hearted, elastic waistband superhero named Captain Underpants.

Plot[]

In Piqua, George Beard and Harold Hutchins are two 9-to-10 year old friends and next-door neighbors who often bring joy to their school, Jerome Horwitz Elementary which the worst school ever), by responsively pranking the cruel teachers, especially the most worst school principal ever; mean-spirited "Benjamin Krupp", such as putting humiliating pictures of the teachers into slideshows, sitting on a spring-loaded ejector chair during quiet reading time, attaching chewing gum to basketballs at basketball courts, putting paint bombs into each of the teachers lunch bags, spreading super glue all over the teacher's chairs causing the teachers to get pointed and laughed at, switching the staff restroom signs around which tricked a women into nearly entering the mens, putting a bucket containing a slimy or wet surprise on top of a door (which is very easy), loosening the pressure of the drinking bubblers making them to rapidly squirt water into the teachers faces, tying all the library books to the ceiling on string, hiding a tiger in the teachers rooms which roars loudly at them giving them a humiliating fright, making it rain water balloons over the school and flooding the entire school with pink soap bubbles from the school canteen. Which puts them at odds with Krupp. The two boys also make comic books about a superhero named Captain Underpants, a character who has superpowers and only wears underwear and a red cape. They sell these to their schoolmates thru a comic business called Treehouse Comics Inc, housed in their treehouse. George and Harold's pranks come to an apparent freeze after they tamper with a toilet invention that Melvin Smelly (Anti Humour Boy) created called the "Turbo Toilet 2000". This causes Krupp to decide to separate the boys and annihilate their friendship.

To prevent this, George hypnotizes Krupp with a 3D Hypno Ring he received out of a package he ordered; the boys first order their principal to act like a chicken and a monkey. Finally, they see that Krupp bears a resemblance to Captain Underpants without his toupee and command him to be Captain Underpants. The boys soon learn the severity of their acts when Captain Underpants begins causing some problems around Piqua and take him to their tree-house. There they discover that they can turn Captain Underpants back into Krupp by splashing water on him and can turn him back by snapping their fingers. Believing that Krupp will continue with his plan to separate them, they decide to settle with Captain Underpants but insist that he be dressed up as Krupp under the pretense of a secret identity to which Captain Underpants agrees. His sudden personality change even manages to attract the attention and affection of the school's shy canteen lady Edith.

Just when George and Harold believe that their troubles have ended, Jerome Horwitz Elementary School is visited by an odd, German scientist named "Professor Diarrheastein Poopypants", Esq., or as he calls himself Professor P. Captain Underpants hires him to be a new teacher, but George and Harold are suspicious of him. As it turns out, Poopypants is seeking to get rid of laughter and humour altogether due to the fact that people have made fun of his own name for years after all the kids were reading a comic about him called "Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants" which George and Harold made. He recruits Melvin to help him as his brain is incapable of having fun in school Captain Underpants sets up a funfair at the yard however rain begins to occur which that George and Harold got separated by Krupp, the boys sadly walk away from each other.

Soon, Professor Poopypants tries to take over the town with a giant life-sized version of the Turbo Toilet 2000, fueled by the school cafeteria's nuclear waste left out by Edith – and uses Melvin's brain mind to turn the children into glum, humorless zombies. Captain Underpants tries to stop the villain, but due to having no actual superpowers, is effortlessly defeated and thrown into the toilet. George and Harold are captured and turned into anti humour zombies, but are able to break the trance by immediately remembering a joke that they made since they were in kindergarten (which was before they became friends) and escape when their laughter damages the Turbo Toilet 2000's computer. Upon consuming the mutated waste, Captain Underpants acquires real superpowers and with George and Harold's help defeats and shrinks Poopypants, though he escapes shortly thereafter and Melvin gets expelled and went to court of discipline and go to visit jail for his crimes and punishment where they reject mad scientists (probably).

Knowing that they cannot control Captain Underpants, George and Harold destroy the Hypno Ring in an attempt to permanently change him back into Krupp. Feeling that Krupp would be nicer if he had friends, the boys set him and lovesick Edith up on a date, thus making Krupp have a change of heart; he returns the comics he took away from George and Harold, and even admits their comics are funny. However, the nuclear waste from the Turbo Toilet 2000 transforms all the toilets into vicious monsters that attack the restaurant at which Krupp and Edith are dining. Upon snapping his fingers, Mr. Krupp once again becomes Captain Underpants, carrying George and Harold away to help him fight them, much to Edith's surprise and admiration.

In a mid-credits scene, George and Harold realise that the secretary that they put on the phone before by faking a $1000 contest has been on the phone for the entire movie. The secretary accidentally hangs up and gets angry, while George and Harold make a new comic based on her reaction.

Cast[]

Gallery[]

Wiki
DreamWorks Wiki has a collection of images and media related to Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie.

Video[]

Production[]

Development[]

DreamWorks' interest in 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 gave Pilkey a tour around the studio with everyone wearing underpants over their trousers, which made him laugh. On October 20, 2011, it was reported that DreamWorks Animation had acquired rights to make an animated feature film based on the Captain Underpants series. On October 25, 2013, it was reported that Rob Letterman would direct the film, while Nicholas Stoller would write the script. The two had previously worked together on the film Gulliver's Travels.

Pre-Production[]

On January 21, 2014, the cast was announced, with Ed Helms joining as Mr. Krupp/Captain Underpants; Kevin Hart as George Beard; Thomas Middleditch as Harold Hutchins; Nick Kroll as the insidious villain, Professor Poopypants; and Jordan Peele as Melvin, the nerdy nemesis of George and Harold. On June 12, 2014, the film was scheduled for release on January 13, 2017.

Production[]

Following DreamWorks Animation's reorganization in early 2015, the studio announced that the film will be produced outside of the studio's pipeline at a significantly lower cost. It will be instead animated at Mikros Image in Montreal, Canada, and it will look differently than most of DWA's films. A month later, Deadline reported that Letterman had left the project, and that David Soren, the director of Turbo, was in 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, ... we actually looked at a lot of John Hughes movies for inspiration, like Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Weird Science. John Hughes had this great knack for making comedies like this. Both of those movies have great friendships at the center of them. He seemed to be able to tap into the voice of a generation. They're very funny, all of his movies, but they are also poignant and they actually have meaningful things to say, which I think is why they have stood the test of time. So there's timelessness to his work that we were attempting to go for with this.

Soundtrack[]

Main article: Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie/Soundtrack

Trivia[]

  • This is the last DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by 20th Century Studios. Starting with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, all DreamWorks Animation films would be distributed by Universal Pictures.
  • The rendition of Can Can was previously used in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
  • Despite being a box office success, this is DreamWorks Animation's lowest grossing CGI film. That was, until Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken in 2023. Barley making back a third of its budget.
  • This is the first film from DreamWorks Animation to have its home media released in September.
  • While the film does not show the “DreamWorks Animation Presents" credit, the words itself was said by Harold.
  • One of the things changed in the film was Ms. Anthrope was changed from Mr. Krupp's much-abused secretary to the school lunch lady as Mr. Krupp's love interest.
  • This is the second DreamWorks animated production where the main characters deal with school life, the first being Trollhunters.
  • During one scene, an Associated Production Music track called "Slippery Sid" is heard playing. This track was previously used in the Nickelodeon animated series SpongeBob SquarePants.
  • This is the first DreamWorks Animation film to be outsourced by another studio.
  • While production of the film is done by DreamWorks Animation, the animation is done by Mikros Image.
  • This is the DreamWorks Animation production to be based on a book.
  • This is the last DreamWorks Animation film to have a home media release to be released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. Starting on June 5, 2018, the film's home media release, along with other DreamWorks Animation films, were released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.
  • The fifth DreamWorks Animation film to be released in June, after Chicken Run, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, and How to Train Your Dragon 2.
  • This is Kristen Schaal's first animated film that is not a sequel to a previous film.
  • This is also Kristen Schaal's second DreamWorks Animation film, after Shrek Forever After.
  • This is DreamWorks Animation's second superhero movie, after Megamind.
  • This is the last DreamWorks Animation film to use the 2010 DreamWorks Animation SKG logo. Starting with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, a new logo is used.
  • Due to NBCUniversal's completed acquisition of DreamWorks Animation and further release date changes, it marks the last time both a DreamWorks film and a Universal/Illumination animated film have been theatrically released on the same month, with the Universal/Illumination animated film released being Despicable Me 3, which was released four weeks later than The Captain Underpants Movie.
  • This is the last DreamWorks Animation film to be streamed on Netflix, as the following DreamWorks Animation films from How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World onwards began streaming on Hulu. However, that has changed since Universal formed a new deal with Netflix to stream their animated films from DreamWorks and Illumination 6 months after theatrical run, and after being on their own streaming service, Peacock for 3 months. As The Bad Guys was the first DreamWorks movie to be a part of this deal.
  • John Debney wanted to score the film, but Theodore Shapiro replaced him as he left the project to do Ice Age: Collision Course instead.

Future[]

DreamWorks Animation has announced a spin-off film based on Pilkey's Dog Man comics, which will be the Dog Man feature film adaptation.

References[]

External Links[]

Navigation[]

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Captain Underpants Logo
Media
Films: Captain Underpants: The First Epic MovieDog Man

TV Series: The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants

Characters
Heroes: Captain UnderpantsGeorge BeardHarold Hutchins

Antagonists: Professor PoopypantsMelvin SneedlyTurbo Toilet 2000
Others: Benjamin KruppEdith

See also
Songs: Hallelujah
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