Are you ready kids? I can’t hear you! Wait don’t run away! I need friends!
If you’re a child of the 90s or just a big fun of animated, sugar-high-feeling cartoons, then SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS is a series tattooed in your brain. The show is huge, the movies were just as huge, and the gravy train is going to keep chugging all the way to Bikini Bottom as it was just announced that another movie is on the way.
During a quarterly call with analysts, Viacom execs gave updates on plans for the future, and Nickelodeon chief Cyma Zarghami briefly spoke about the series, saying “there will definitely be another SPONGEBOB movie.” No other updates were given, such as release date, but Zarghami sounds confident we will be seeing the sea sponge in theaters once more.
The latest SPONGEBOB film, SPONGE OUT OF WATER in 2015, made more than expected with a $162 million domestic take (over $300 million global), and garnered some solid reviews from critics. With numbers like that a sequel was inevitable, and now we know it’s coming for sure, which is probably music to the company’s ears.
Viacom owns Paramount Pictures and distributes movies through the studio, including SPONGEBOB, and Paramount itself has gone through a bit of a rough patch. This past year saw a ton of films from the studio bombing hard, such as BEN-HUR, which reportedly lost north of $100 million for the studio. This year wasn’t so hot either, with MONSTER TRUCKS not starting things off well for 2017.
A SPONGEBOB movie, though not necessary, is an easy way for the studio to earn some green, which is understandable. Companies and studios have to make their nut, and if scores of children and adult children can be made happy for an hour or two that's cool too. I haven't seen either film, as I cannot deal with the constant pummeling of colors mixed with a bucked-tooth cackle, but it's cat nip for kids and nostalgia seekers, so at least some people love them. Whatever stops Paramount from having to start giving favors on the street for cash, I guess.