Puppet Pals

Puppet Pals is a 2006 American computer-animated fantasy action-comedy film produced by 20th Century Fox Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film was directed by Steve Martino and Rich Moore and written by Jon Vitti, Mike Reiss, Peter Ackerman, and Brad Bird from a story by Chris Renaud, and stars the voices of Jesse McCartney, Anne Hathaway, Josh Peck, Seth Rogen, Sandra Bullock, Matthew Broderick, Cedric the Entertainer, William Shatner, John Goodman, Jason Lee, and Sarah Vowell. In the film, Nathan Ritter, an young adult has his life turned upside down when he ends up getting sent into a city named Tinywood and recruits the help of a weird-named team and an young princess named Princess Joanna, and while trying to get back home, the team is trying to avoid an evil woman who is out for the destruction of Tinywood.

Puppet Pals premiered at the Mann Village Theater on June 12, 2006, and was released in the United States on June 30, 2006. It received universal acclaim from critics and was a box office success, grossing $662.2 million worldwide on its $90 million budget, making it the fourth highest-grossing film of 2006. Puppet Pals was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but it lost to Happy Feet. It also received nominations for Best Original Screenplay (for writers Jon Vitti, Peter Ackerman, Mike Reiss, and Brad Bird) and Best Sound Mixing (Randy Thom, Dennie Thorpe, Jana Vance, Gary Rydstrom and Tom Myers). Puppet Pals saw a 3D re-release in theaters on September 9, 2016 to celebrate its 10th anniversary. The film's success helped spawn an expanded franchise, with four sequels—2010's Puppet Pals 2, 2012's Puppet Pals 3, and 2018's Puppet Pals Forever — a holiday special, several short films, theme park attractions, and a television spin-off.

Plot
Coming soon!

Cast

 * Jesse McCartney as Nathan Ritter, an pampered but lonely boy.
 * Zachary Gordon as young Nathan Ritter
 * Anne Hathaway as Princess Joanna, the lost princess of Tinywood.
 * Josh Peck as Toby, a magical and geeky lizard-like creature.
 * Seth Rogen as Jeremy Johnson
 * Sandra Bullock as Rosie Storm
 * Matthew Broderick as Captain Matt
 * Sarah Vowell as Natalia Watson, a cheerful and kind teenage girl who is the youngest member of the Puppet Pals.
 * John Goodman as Mayor Adam
 * Jason Lee as Rob Storm, Rosie Storm's son
 * Chris Wedge as Slippy the Dog
 * Cedric the Entertainer as John, one of Rosie Storm's henchmen.
 * William Shatner as Dave, one of Rosie Storm's henchmen.
 * Patrick Warburton as Milo, a tourist.
 * Betty White as Wendy, a tourist.
 * Susanne Blakeslee as an old lady
 * Corey Burton as a police officer
 * Tom Kenny as The Magic Ball
 * Patton Oswalt as Steve Smiley
 * Chris Wedge, David Silverman, Chris Renaud (uncredited), Bob Bergen (uncredited), and Steve O'Connell as the Smileys

Development
David Silverman came up with the concept for Puppet Pals in 2001 during the production of 2003's Jose Maldonaldo: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. In the beginning of production, Silverman began work on the film with Steve Martino in 2000, shortly after the release of Titan A.E. By late 2000, Silverman had drafted a treatment with Martino that bore some resemblance to the final film. Silverman and Martino pitched the story to 20th Century Fox Animation with some initial artwork in January 2001. He and his story team left with some suggestions in hand and returned to pitch a refined version of the story in March. Although the film was solely directed by Steve Martino, Disney, Universal, and Pixar artists came into the project and created the characters and story, which were given to Steve Martino. The film was originally developed under the title of Tinywood, but it was changed. In March 2002, following the success of Ice Age, announced that Steve Martino and David Silverman was working on a then-untitled project that would become Puppet Pals. In November 2002, Fox revealed the film's title to be Puppet Pals, then planned for a 2005 release. In addition, it would be animated with computer-animation, rather than traditional hand-drawn animation that had been done with Fox's previous films. Alaina Gleen creator Thalia Ward didn't like the name of the film, saying that it would be dumb and fearing that it would bomb at the box office. In March 2003, production of the film officially began, and David Silverman was brought in to produce the film. Kevin Lima, Thalia Ward, and Chris Wedge worked as creative consultants on the film. The film was later completed by April 2006.

Casting
Coming soon!

Animation
Coming soon!

Music
Main article: Puppet Pals/Soundtrack

The film's original score was composed by Michael Giacchino and John Powell. The soundtrack album was released on June 27, 2006 by Varèse Sarabande.

Critical response
Puppet Pals received widespread critical acclaim, becoming a cult hit among critics upon release. On the aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an "Certified Fresh" rating of 89% based on 171 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Even if it's not an animation classic, Puppet Pals is clever and fun, and the jokes cater to family members of all ages." On Metacritic, it received a score of 76 out of 100, based on 73 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Box office
Puppet Pals opened in 3,922 North American theaters on its opening weekend, grossing $31,292,306 on its first day (Friday, June 30, 2006), which was the biggest Friday opening day in June at that time. During its opening weekend, Puppet Pals earned $70,230,484 million from its North American theaters, which at the time set new records such as the highest opening for a Fox-animated film (later overtaken by The Simpsons Movie). This film opened at #1 at the box office on its opening weekend behind The Devil Wears Prada (2006). The film closed on December 14, 2006 after 24 weeks of release, grossing $280,214,564 million in the United States and Canada, along with $382,056,987 million overseas for a worldwide total of $662,271,551 million. The film sold an estimated 48,430,650 tickets in North America.

The film was released in the United Kingdom three months later on September 15, 2006, and topped the country's box office for the next three weekends, before being dethroned by The Devil Wears Prada.

3D re-release
Puppet Pals 3D was opened in 2,979 theaters on September 9, 2016, and made $18.2 million in its opening weekend, finishing in second at the box office. The film closed on October 20, 2016, with a worldwide gross of $83.6 million. Unlike other countries, the U.K. and Argentina received the film in 3-D. Puppet Pals 3D was released on September 23, 2016 in the U.K., and October 6, 2016, in Argentina.

Release
The film premiered on June 12, 2006, at the Mann Village Theatre, Westwood in Los Angeles, and was released in the United States on June 30, 2006.

In March 2005, IMAX decided to plan a big-screen 3D version of Puppet Pals. The film would have been re-released during the Christmas season of 2006, or the following summer, after its conventional 2D release. The re-release would have also included new sequences and an alternate ending. Plans for this was dropped due to "creative changes" instituted by Fox and resulted in a loss of $1.12 million, down from IMAX's profit of $4.11 million.

However, on June 1, 2019, Fox and IMAX announced that the film would be reissued and digitally re-mastered for IMAX theaters (alongside its sequels, Puppet Pals 2, Puppet Pals the Third, and Puppet Pals: Forever After using their DMR Technology in a marathon for a one-day only, "Fan Event", on July 15.

The theatrical release was accompanied by Fox Animation's 2004 Academy Award-nominated short film The Mushies!

A montage of "outtakes" were made and included in the end credits of the film starting on July 28, 2006, which was done because Fox hoped it would encourage people to view the film a second time.

The film was originally scheduled for release on July 7, 2006, but on December 9, 2004, its release date was pushed back to June 30, 2006. The release date change was also the day before Universal Pictures changed the release date of Me & Mobo to December 2005 to July 2006.

Marketing
Burger King promoted the film with a set of 8 kids' meal toys featuring the characters from the film.

Baskin-Robbins promoted the film for its new Puppet Pals EXTREME Sundae that consists of crushed Hershey's chocolate, hot fudge, crushed chocolate cookies, whipped cream, squiggly gummy worms and chocolate syrup.

The film was backed by a large marketing campaign, with toys, books, games, clothes, and many other items becoming available throughout 2006.
 * The film's first teaser trailer was released on June 17, 2005, and was later shown in theaters in front of A Really Surreal Movie, Fantastic Four, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sky High, and Corpse Bride.
 * Another teaser trailer was released on October 7, 2005, and was later released with Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Chicken Little, Zathura: A Space Adventure, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Yours, Mine, & Ours, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Hoodwinked!.
 * The first theatrical trailer was was released on February 10, 2006 and was shown with Curious George, Doogal, The Shaggy Dog, Ice Age: The Meltdown and The Wild.
 * The second and final theatrical trailer was released in May 7, 2006 during an episode of The Simpsons, and was shown before Over the Hedge, X-Men: The Last Stand, Cars, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, and Nacho Libre.
 * TV spots began to air between May and June of 2006.

Video game
A video game based on the film was released on June 27, 2006 on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PC, and Macintosh.

Home media
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment first released Puppet Pals on DVD on November 28, 2006. This release includes a special THX edition with DTS sound, Two short films: Slippy's Missing Adventure and the Puppet Pals Crazy Dance Party. It also includes an sneak peek to Kate & Chris, playable games, a demo of the film's video game on PC and many more.

It was later released again on Blu-ray 3D, 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, DVD, and Blu-ray on November 1, 2016 to honor the 10th anniversary of the franchise.

Cultural impact
Coming soon!

Expanded franchise
Coming soon!