Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (DreamWorks)

[Sotiris]

After a spirited auction, DreamWorks Animation has acquired rights to make a feature out of Captain Underpants, the popular 8-volume book series by Dav Pilkey. DreamWorks Animation wasn’t the only bidder, but won the title this morning.

The books revolve around a couple of precocious fourth graders named George Beard and Harold Hutchins. Looking to get back at nasty, student-hating principal Mr. Benny Krupp, the boys hypnotize the principal and cause him to become Captain Underpants. He’s a superhero who is nice and helpful to children and manages to get into all kinds of misadventures with the fourth graders shadowing him to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. The principal has no recollection of his heroics when he returns to normal. Pikey has completed eight volumes with a ninth in the works, Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers. Scholastic publishes the books.

DWA chief creative officer Bill Damaschke said he and his colleagues have chased Pilkey for movie rights since he first began publishing the series in 1997, but the author never wanted to sell them. “I know he’d been approached many times, and finally, Kassie Evashevski at UTA and Amy Berkower at Writers House phoned us and simply said, ‘He’s ready,’” Damaschke said. “There’s a great anarchic combination of kid and adult humor, and George and Harold are these terrific mischievous characters. And we felt that hypnotizing the principal is one of those great ideas. We’re all big fans of the book.”

Source: http://www.deadline.com/2011/10/dreamwo ... r-feature/

[Dr Frankenollie]

Hmm...sounds interesting. I read one of the books when I was much younger and despite the chapters being ridiculously short, it was rather amusing.

[estefan]

Interesting. I wondered why there hadn't been a Captain Underpants adaptation yet. If this came out in the late 90s, I would have been incredibly hyped for it. But I will definitely be seeing this.

[UmbrellaFish]

This movie adaptation seems about ten years too late.

[Avaitor]

Heh, I used to love these books as a kid. They're probably too juvenile for me now, but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't at least a little curious for the nostalgia factor.

[jpanimation]

This movie adaptation seems about ten years too late.

My thoughts exactly. I had to have still been in elementary school when this was popular.

[ajmrowland]

i was in elementary school when they were popular

[Mickeyfan1990]

I rarely post in any of the other the forums, so I thought I do one here. So for those who may or may not know, DreamWorks is releasing Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie June 2nd 2017 and the results are already promising.

Having got into the books recently because of this, I was quite pleased the way DreamWorks has handled the film. Designs are true to the books, there will be hand-drawn animated sequences(!), and best of all Weird Al is performing the theme song (full circle considering he was mentioned in the first book)!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJgL9pbDLBE

First Look announcement:
http://ew.com/movies/2016/12/24/captain ... -ed-helms/

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs2SrqLum1M

And some clips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boEx5zn-6og
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z1PTR52Km4


I know somewhere currently, Dav Pilkey is proud on how this turned out.