Mar 22, 2017

Dreamworks' "Captain Pants: The First Epic Movie" has a trailer

Here's the first trailer for Dreamworks Animation's upcoming film, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, to be released in the U.S. by 20th Century Fox on June 2, 2017.

The trailer pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the film's set-up: two schoolkids hypnotize their principal into thinking he's a superhero named Captain Underpants. It needs little set-up because the movie is an adaptation of the smash children's book series created by Dav Pilkey, whose 12 volumes have sold 70 million copies worldwide.

The Dreawmorks version is directed by David Soren (Turbo) from a script by Nicholas Stoller (Neighbors, Storks). The two leads, George and Harold, are voiced respectively by Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch. Other voices include Nick Kroll as Professor Poopypants, Jordan Peele as Melvin Sneedly, and Ed Helms as Captain Underpants.

This film represents a historic moment for Dreamworks Animation in one important way: it's the first Dreamworks project that had its animation outsourced to a non-Dreamworks studio. The movie is being animated in Montreal, Canada, by Technicolor-owned Mikros Image, whose other animation credits include Asterix: The Mansions of the Gods, The Little Prince, and Mune: Guardian of the Moon.

Cartoon Brew first reported on the Mikros connection back in 2015. The studio's involvement isn't being heavily promoted by Dreamworks, because Jeffrey Katzenberg's original goal was that Mikros would deliver at a level where audiences wouldn't discern any difference between this movie and other internally-made Dreamworks productions. If the trailer serves as any indication, Mikros has succeeded in creating a Dreamworks-level film - and most likely at a fraction of the cost of typical Dreawmorks projects.