Going Francisco

Going Francisco is a 2001 American animated science-fiction comedy film produced by Gingo Movies and Imagine Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. The feature-length directorial debut of Arlo-Avocha Vernon, the film's screenplay was written by Tim Hill, J. David Stem, David N. Weiss, and Karey Kirkpatrick from a story by Vernon. It stars the voices of Spencer Klein, Ashley Peldon, Missi Pyle, George Clooney, and Willem Dafoe. This was also the first fully animated film to be produced by Imagine Entertainment. Going Francisco follows the Crosby family, who live next door to a neighbor known as "The Champ". He teleports them into a strange computer-generated version of San Francisco, where they meet a mysterious, clear-white, bald man who offers to help the family get home in time for their family reunion. However, when they realize he is actually a character controlled by their neighbor in a multiplayer video game, they must escape him and rush through the virtual city to find their way back to the real world themselves.

The initial idea was conceived in 1997 by Arlo-Avocha Vernon following work on his animated series Funky Fu! Pop Star Fighter when Michael Wildshill and Brian Grazer approached him to make a new animated film for Universal Feature Animation in co-production with Imagine Entertainment. The animation of the film uses hand-drawn 2D traditional animation with computer-generated imagery (CGI), with Universal Feature Animation, Gingo Animation, and Universal Digital Images handling animation services.

Going Francisco was released in the United States on June 29, 2001. It grossed $218.9 million against a $54 million budget and received mixed reviews from critics, with particular criticism directed at the film's sitcom-like production values and story. However, with its home media release, the film has since attained a cult following, particularly among those who grew up with the film. After the film's release, much of the CGI animation team regrouped to work on Universal's fully CGI animated feature Computeropolis, directed by Going Francisco ' s story artist Audel LaRoque.

Plot
The Crosby family — husband Anson, wife Rhea, and siblings Dan and Sara — live in Jefferson, Missouri, next door to a video gamer labeled by his bumper sticker as "The Champ", who has garnered suspicion among his neighbors for projecting bright blue glows from his window in the middle of the night. One night, the Crosby family prepares for a road trip to an extended family reunion in San Francisco, California. Dan and Sara are less than enthused, as they previously intended to partake in special activities with their friends; Dan wanted to help his group compete against a rivaling basketball team at his school gym, and Sara wanted to escape her after-school evenings with her brother by attending a slumber party. The light from the house next-door glows progressively brighter, and just as the family begins taking off for the reunion, an electrical surge emerges from the house through the neighborhood's power lines and zaps the Crosbies, taking their van with it.

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Cast
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 * Spencer Klein as Dan Crosby, Sara's younger brother; a 12-year old basketball geek
 * Ashley Peldon as Sara Crosby, Dan's older sister; a 15-year old high school sophomore and a typical neat-freak teenage girl
 * Missi Pyle as Rhea Crosby, the mother of the siblings
 * George Clooney as Anson Crosby, the father of the siblings
 * Willem Dafoe as The Champ, the Crosbys' next-door neighbor and an aspiring top-ranking player of Road Rage: California.

Additional voices

 * Jack Angel
 * Bob Bergen
 * Jeff Bennett
 * Debi Derryberry
 * Bill Farmer
 * Lynn Hobson
 * Roger L. Jackson
 * Jason Marsden
 * Mickie McGowan
 * Pat Pinney
 * Phil Proctor
 * Arlo-Avocha Vernon

Development
Following the success of his Gingo animated series Funky Fu! Pop Star Fighter ahead of its premiere in February 1997, Arlo-Avocha Vernon was approached by Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment and Michael Wildshill (who was working on Ama and the Mysterious Crystal at the time) to develop a new film at Universal Pictures' Feature Animation division. Vernon then pitched several ideas for the studio, in which among them (the one that was ultimately green-lit) was a concept of "a family road trip inside a virtual world" he originally had as a proposed TV series for a few years prior to Funky Fu!. Vernon wrote a treatment and pitched it to Wildshill, who was "definitely blown away" of the concept.

On March 13, 1999, it was announced that Vernon was directing the film, now entitled Going Francisco, with a set release date of 2001, with Tim Hill, J. David Stem, David N. Weiss and Karey Kirkpatrick hired to write the script while Wildshill, Grazer, Brandon Minez and Joe Medjuck would produce it. The film was initially set to be produced under the Universal Feature Animation label, but later decided that it would be instead released under the Gingo Movies brand following the modest success of Hatty in the Big City: The Movie, a feature film based on the Gingo series Hatty. However, Universal Animation was still involved in the project, but only working for the story development and animation services this time.

Animation
While the work was a Universal animated production, it was considered far less essential than the studio's mainstream works at the time such as Mistress Masham's Repose, and was given a far smaller budget compared to these films. Thus, Going Francisco was jointly produced by Universal Feature Animation and Gingo Animation with Universal Digital Images handling the CGI animated sequences. Pre-production was done at the main Feature Animation studio in Universal City, California, starting as early as mid-1999. The animation work was done at Bardel Entertainment in Vancouver under the direction of Barry Ward and Delna Bhesania, and clean-up work done at the main Universal City studio. Additional clean-up/animation was done by Yowza! Animation in Canada.

One of the film's goals was to blend different mediums of animation into one film to have such a seamless finish to the point you could not tell the difference between what was two-dimensional hand drawing or computer-generated 3D animations and environments. For the animation of Going Francisco, there are three main elements that were essential to the production of this film. The traditional 2D character animation, three-dimensional character animation, and the computer-generated or CG character animation and environments. According to Vernon, he wanted to utilize computer animation for the San Francisco scenes in the film as he described them as a "3D video game world". After several failed attempts to recruit computer animation companies for the CGI animation, Universal took on the animation themselves through the Digital Images division, which produced the 2000 CGI-animated short Aero.

To ensure CG animation, 3D workbooks were created using Softimage 3D software. 54 animators worked on the film, using 300 computer processors to animate the CGI scenes. To make the 2D characters turn into CGI, Vernon and fellow character designer Shannon Tindle had an orthographic view of the characters, and Vernon's character designs were drawn on paper and scanned into the PowerAnimator software for the modelers to rig in the computers. The programs were "Fuzzy Tool," which was used for the characters' hair and clothing and to create fur and grass; "Body Builder," which was used to create skin and muscles for the characters; and "Mug Shot," a shape blender that works within Alias Maya for facial animation and lip-synching.

During post-production, the film was sent to Skywalker Sound, where the sound effects were mixed with the music score.

Soundtrack
The original music for the film was composed by John Debney and Heitor Pereira, both of whom had previously worked on the score of Spy Kids. It marks the first Universal animated film to be scored by two composers. The soundtrack was released on June 26, 2001 by Epic Records.

Track listing
All music is composed by John Debney and Heitor Pereira, except where noted.
 * 1) "Invincible" - Michael Jackson
 * 2) "Getaway" - Earth, Wind &amp; Fire
 * 3) "It's Gonna Be Me" - NSYNC
 * 4) "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) " - Scott McKenzie
 * 5) "Maximum Consumption" - The Kinks
 * 6) "In the Hood" - Kool &amp; the Gang
 * 7) "Don't Mess with the Radio" - Nivea
 * 8) "You Rock My World" - Michael Jackson
 * 9) "Hyperreal Orbit" - The Shamen
 * 10) "Michael" - Roy Davis Jr.
 * 11) "Clock Is Mine" - Lyre Le Temps
 * 12) "San Francisco (You've Got Me)" - Village People
 * 13) Main Title / Road Rage Theme
 * 14) Evening Plans
 * 15) They Call Him the Champ
 * 16) Electrical Convenience
 * 17) Urban Lunatics
 * 18) The Kidnapping
 * 19) Chinatown
 * 20) Mr. Suit Ruins It
 * 21) The Secret of the Suit
 * 22) Can You Police Help Us?
 * 23) Lots of Cars Comin'
 * 24) Knocked Out
 * 25) Reprogramming
 * 26) You Can't Escape!
 * 27) Calling Back to Reality
 * 28) Friends and Family Revolt
 * 29) What Do You Think?

Release
Going Francisco was released in theaters on June 29, 2001, by Universal Pictures. The film was accompanied by the short animated film Construction Royale featuring Woody Woodpecker in his first theatrical short in nearly 30 years.

Marketing
The first trailer was released theatrically in late 2000 with Mistress Masham's Repose. A second trailer consisting of new animation debuted in March 2001.

A video game based on the film was developed by Argonaut Games and published by Konami alongside Universal Interactive Studios for the PlayStation console which was released on June 26, 2001. THQ released another video game for the Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color.

Home media
Going Francisco was released on VHS and DVD on December 18, 2001, by Universal Studios Home Video. It was re-released on DVD on May 24, 2011, and re-released again on DVD on July 17, 2018. The film has yet to be released on Blu-ray.

Box office
The film earned $82.8 million in North American theaters and another $136.1 million from other countries. The worldwide gross was $218.9 million against a budget of $54 million.

Critical reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Going Francisco has an approval rating of 57% collected from 78 reviews, with an average rating of 5.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The script plays it too much like a Saturday morning cartoon stretched to feature-length, and not often a funny one to begin with. Still, give it points for supplying cool visuals." Metacritic gives the film a score of 51 out of 100 from 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Accolades
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Legacy
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Main
To see the main transcript of the film, click here.

Trailers
To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.