Futurama Returns for Movie
Futurama is set to return for 4 Feature Length Movies which will be released straight-to-dvd in Nov 2007 and later broadcast as 16 separate episodes on Comedy Central in Jan 2008.
At a press conference at the 2007 Comic-Convention (ComicCon) in San Diego, Simpsons creator Matt Groening announced the return of his other great series, Futurama. The show will now be in widescreen and HDTV.
“We’re doing four straight-to-DVD ‘Futurama’ movies and all-new episodes on Comedy Central starting in 2008.” said Matt Groening. “The first DVD for Futurama will be out for the holidays.”
Futurama fans were treated well. Not only did Matt Groening and company assemble for an amusing and informative panel, but they were treated to a 5 minute trailer of the upcoming Futurama flick, Bender’s Big Score!, out on DVD November 27th.
I think the idea is to capture new fans. The first one is a great science fiction story. It’s got the Fry and Leela relationship. It’s got lots of action. It’s got lots of great Bender and Zoidberg moments. All the old regulars who have appeared have their own scenes. But it’s very accessible to people who haven’t watched a whole lot.
Each movie’s going to be divided into four parts. It’s not going to be just cut, cut, cut. They’re going to try and edit them into separate pieces of a story. Hopefully, if enough people watch the episodes and the DVDs sell, they’ll order more episodes, more movies. I personally think Futurama would make a great theatrical release. It just lends itself to the big screen.
The budget’s a little smaller. But it’s comparable to what it was on Fox. The writing’s crew a little smaller, but [we have] all the key people like Ken Keeler, Eric Kaplan. Our animation staff is exactly the same as it was on the series, the same size. Our CG department’s a little bigger, even. – Rich Moore, Director.
Series creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen assembled on stage, introducing one at a time the principal voice crew, the director of the DVD movies, and two writers. A mini Futurama comic was distributed throughout the panel audience, and the voice cast paged through the booklet, doing a hilarious, unrehearsed live reading.
Then they ran the clip, a five-minute collection of random footage from the first DVD movie, out November 27th. Three more are planned, which will be released throughout 2008.
Bender’s Big Score! revolves around Bender being swindled by nude Internet scammers and Planet Express the victim of a hostile takeover. The plots of the three other movies (The Beast with a Million Backs, Bender’s Game, and The Wild Green Yonder) have yet to be revealed, but all four will be re-edited as 16 TV episodes that will air on Comedy Central in 2008.
The trailer starts with Professor Farnsworth’s good news that the people at the Box Network that cancelled Planet Express in the first place have been fired, beaten, killed, and ground into a pink powder, much to the delight of Farnsworth’s crew. Fan favorite Zoidberg has some of the best scenes in the clip, including popping out of his shell on a nude beach, and reattaching Hermes’ decapitated head back onto his body. Hermes looks down, and is livid to see that Zoidberg has placed his head on backwards. Confused, Zoidberg states he thought Hermes was happy because “his tail was wagging.” Nice. The clip ends with Hypnotoad staring from out the screen, and a voice repeatedly commanding the audience to buy the DVDs.
The floor opened to audience questions, with one of the more compelling inquiries regarding content and budget. Cohen appeared very aware that fans are curious about this issue. He candidly said that the writing crew had to take a hit, and that instead of a live orchestra a synthesizer was used to score the movies. But he assured the crowd that this technology was an excellent substitute, and quipped that a synthesizer will eventually start producing scripts.
