The Simpsons
has been so awful for the last few years that people have been calling
the latest barely mediocre episodes a return to greatness. Could it be
that there’s a method to this unfunny madness? Could it be that all the
jokes have been saved for the big screen movie, to be called SimpsonsThe Simpsons Movie? Judging by the trailer, which seems to be ripping off The Family Guy, a show buily on ripping off The Simpsons, no.
That’s
right, there’s a trailer. Honestly, this is sort of shocking to me.
There are some projects that stay as vaporfilm which make me feel
comforted – I always know that these movies will never exist but will
generate baseless rumors for me to occasionally riff on when the real
news gets slow. But here’s the teaser, which ran before this weekend’s Ice Age, and was presumably seen by every human being who still wees in diapers, judging by the box office take.
Click here to see the trailer on trust ol’ youtube. You know what’s interesting to me, as someone who started with The Simpsons way
back when? If this movie had been made in the first few years of the
show, the only character in the preview would have been Bart. He was
THE Simpson character. But now it’s all about Homer. Not since Trapper
John left M*A*S*H has a long running show evolved so thoroughly.
Says Variety: "We’ve
taken script security to the point of lunacy, though it helped that we
wrote it in Aramaic," quipped Mike Scully, who wrote the script with
creator Matt Groening, Brooks and series veterans Al Jean, Ian
Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, Matt Selman,
John Swartzwelder and Jon Vitti.
David Silverman, the "Simpsons" supervising animation director who co-helmed 2001’s Monsters, Inc., is set as director.
Interestingly,
the article indicates they have just begun storyboarding for the film,
which the teaser claims will have a July 07 release. That’s a damn fast
turnaround for an animated film.