The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

Stephen Hillenburg opens on a promotion refused: Mr. Krabs gives the Krusty Krab 2 manager job to Squidward, not SpongeBob. Plankton steals King Neptune’s crown and frames Krabs, sending SpongeBob and Patrick to Shell City on a six day deadline. Hillenburg meant this to end the series and built it that way: SpongeBob’s answer is not to prove he has grown up but to accept he is a kid. Nickelodeon wanted more, so he stepped down as showrunner, Paul Tibbitt took over and the show runs still. It is a finale the series ignored. The script came together in three months in a former Glendale bank; the animation was made at Rough Draft Studios in South Korea. Late on the film leaves animation altogether for live action shot in Santa Monica by Mark Osborne, with David Hasselhoff as himself. It opened to 32 million dollars in North America and finished at 85 million. At the 32nd Annie Awards it was nominated for best animated feature and lost to The Incredibles; the series won best animated television production. A good fit if you take the switch from drawing to a real beach as part of the joke, not a break. Not for viewers new to the show: it treats the Krusty Krab, Plankton and Bikini Bottom as known and introduces none.