Director Dave Needham, writer and voice of Plankton, Mr.Lawrence, and voice of Karen, Jill Talley talk about their upcoming animated comedy, which follows the world’s smallest megalomaniacal villain as his world flips upside down when his plan for world domination is thwarted; hits Netflix March 7.
Dave Needham – a storyboard artist on , , and many other projects – has never been a fan of musicals.
“The characters have to be pushed into a place where all they can do is burst out in song,” he explains.“Doing that, while progressing a story, is hard to achieve.” So, when approached to direct Nickelodeon Animation Studios’ musical feature , releasing on Netflix Friday, March 7, Needham was apprehensive to accept the offer. “I remember talking to the execs and saying, ‘I don’t love musicals.But, if we can make it funny, then I’m all in,’” Needham shares.
“And we couldn’t have had a better group to help with making that happen.” Needham makes his feature film directorial debut with a screenplay from the long-time voice of Sheldon J.Plankton himself: Mr.Lawrence (Douglas Lawrence Osowski).
, executive produced by Marc Ceccarelli and Vincent Waller, follows the latest escapades from the main villain of Stephen Hillenburg’s series.In the film, Plankton's plans for world domination are put to a halt when his supercomputer wife, Karen, decides to take charge.Now, he and his frenemy, SpongeBob, have to work together to stop Karen and rekindle her and Plankton's relationship.
The voice cast includes Mr.Lawrence as Plankton, Jill Talley as Karen and Tom Kenny as SpongeBob.Bill Fagerbakke, Carolyn Lawrence, Clancy Brown, and Rodger Bumpass also voice their famous animated alter-egos. Check out the trailer: “I was at Nickelodeon directing movie when the studio approached me with some other films they had coming up and, of them all, I just zeroed straight in on Plankton,” says Needham.
“I love villains and he's the most iconic version of that little man who wants to be the big man.You can't get much smaller than Plankton.And, in this film, we explore not just Plankton, but Karen as well.
She finally snaps.” For 25 years, Karen has been Plankton’s wife and sidekick, supplying him with evil plans to steal the Krabby Patty burger formula.And, after being mostly unappreciated by her supervillain husband for so many years, Karen decides it’s her turn to take over the world. She is, after all, the smartest citizen of Bikini Bottom. “Being a villain is a blast,” says Talley, who has been voicing for Karen since ’ first season aired in 1999.“I played this character for so long, but Karen isn’t confined to one box.
She’s bigger than that and to shake it up has been fun.” In the film, Tally finds a voice not only for her original Karen, but for Smart Karen, Evil Karen, Snarky Karen, New Karen and more. “I have to sing as this character in the movie and access different voices for her,” shares Tally.“I surprised myself.I’m also a ham at heart and loved getting to do all the hammy things.” Mr.
Lawrence, who was working on the script for two years before production started, adds, “These characters have been around for so long, and everybody knows them, and that’s what we’re playing with in this movie.You thought you knew these characters, but here’s some things you didn’t know.I’m actually hoping that, after people watch the movie, they’ll go back and watch the show and have new thoughts about it.
Maybe it’ll bring a new layer of comedy to the show.” is now in its 15th Season, not including franchise spinoffs.As more and more Bikini Bottom stories get made, Mr.Lawrence admits it gets harder to dig deeper into the world and find new topics to talk about that haven’t already been unpacked.
Karen turning the tables on Plankton and attempting to execute her own world takeover plan was certainly new.As was making characters burst into song. Though it initially started out as an idea for a TV special, Mr.Lawrence thought the epic story would be better served as a film.
And Needham agreed. “At a certain point, everything that goes wrong in this movie has to be Plankton’s fault,” explains Needham.“For Plankton to reflect on it and do something about it can really only be explored in a long-form movie.We also had this amazing music supervisor, Karyn Rachtman, who was on and knows everybody.
Through her, we connected with people like Bret McKenzie, Linda Perry, as well as Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh, who are all so good at their craft and at making charming, funny songs that also progress the story in a meaningful way.And, if you’ve got people laughing, that’s the magic.” Needham feels that the fun he and the rest of the crew had behind the scenes shows up on screen.And for Mr.
Lawrence and Talley, who don’t get to record together as often as they did prior to the COVID pandemic, this production brought back a lot of memories. “When the show started, we all recorded as an ensemble, like on a radio show,” shares Mr.Lawrence. Tally interjects, “And [Mr.Lawrence and I] would get into trouble because we would improvise and talk over each other, which [the showrunners] can’t use.
So, they separated us a few times.And that was really fun.We joke that one day those outtakes will be released.
Let’s just say a lot of comedy happened.” Lawrence continues, “But I think that’s part of what we bring to those characters.We tend to do things just for the sake of being funny.” But imagining a series of funny jokes and then weaving them into a successful animated movie are two very different things.With the film including 3DCG and four styles of 2D animation from multiple animation vendors around the world (including ReDefine, Mikros Animation, Yukfoo Animation, and the French artist “mcbess”) making sure jokes and more serious points landed consistently was one of the film’s biggest challenges.
“But I think it turned out really successfully,” says Needham.“Doug (Mr.Lawrence) was so busy working on all the other shows that he hadn’t seen the movie until it had been finished for about six months.
We had a screening at Nickelodeon and Doug saw it and was so happy that, afterwards, he kissed me on the cheek.” Lawrence, who remembers the kiss as well, added, “Once I’d written everything and once we had recorded everything, the film was sort of on its own journey.I was really glad Dave followed it through to the end.” Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime.She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment.
Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
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