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Foodfight!

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Foodfight!
DVD cover
Directed byLawrence Kasanoff
Written byBrent Friedman
Rebecca Swanson
Sean Catherine Derek
Lawrence Kasanoff
Story byLawrence Kasanoff
Joshua Wexler
Produced byLawrence Kasanoff
Joshua Wexler
George Johnsen
Jimmy Lenner (executive producer)
Gregory Cascante (co-executive producer)
Daniel K.S. Su (co-executive producer)
Robert D. Cain (co-executive producer)
StarringCharlie Sheen
Wayne Brady
Hilary Duff
Larry Miller
Chris Kattan
Eva Longoria Parker
Harvey Fierstein
Jerry Stiller
Cloris Leachman
Christopher Lloyd
Edited byRay Mupas
Craig Paulsen
Ann Hoyt
Sean Rourke
Music byWalter Murphy
Production
company
Distributed byLions Gate Entertainment (Proposed Distributor)
Boulevard Entertainment (UK)
Viva Pictures (USA)
Release date
  • June 2012 (2012-06)[1]
Running time
87 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$45 million[2]
Box office$73,706[3]

Foodfight! is a 2012 American computer animated family film produced by Threshold Entertainment and directed by Larry Kasanoff. The film features the voices of Charlie Sheen, Wayne Brady, Hilary Duff, and Eva Longoria. It was originally planned for a Christmas 2003 release[4] and was pushed to late 2005.[5] The Fireman's Fund Insurance Company and International Film Guarantors were set to auction off the film and all associated rights in September 2011, to settle C47 Productions and Threshold Animation Studios defaulted loan for the film.[6][7]

Plot

Foodfight! takes place in the "Marketropolis" supermarket at night after everyone has left. The grocery store transforms into a city, and from every door of this city comes two types of characters: well-known marketing icons and new characters, including Dex Dogtective (Charlie Sheen), Sunshine Goodness (Hilary Duff) and Daredevil Dan (Wayne Brady). These icons are referred to in the story as "Ikes". The story opens with Dex escaping from a damaged hot air balloon, before telling Daredevil Dan that he is about to ask Sunshine Goodness to marry him. However, when Dan attempts to draw a picture of Dex proposing to Sunshine in the sky, he crashes his plane into a tree and Sunshine volunteers to go assist Dan at the crash site before Dex can propose. Dan returns from the crash site, with no idea what happened to Sunshine.

Six months later, a seemingly mentally disabled man arrives at Marketropolis during the day to persuade the owner, Mr Leonard, to stock detergent and other products made by a large parent company known as Brand X. He claims he can "Make Space" and knocks a bag of potato chips off of the shelf and crushes it with his foot, which becomes a large topic of discussion in the city that night. At the Copa Banana, Dex talks to the Ike whose potato chips were stomped, before meeting the Brand X detergent Ike, Lady X. Many Ikes are seemingly mesmerized (and even angered) by Lady X's beauty, forcing Dex to order everybody to clear out of his club. Lady X, after being threatened by the Chip Ike, leaves with Daredevil Dan.

Characters

Despite the presence of many licensed characters, the principal characters of this film are original characters.[8]

  • Dex Dogtective - Dex is a private investigator,[8] as well as the owner of the Copabanana nightclub.[5] Dex's girlfriend is missing and he is searching for her.[8]
  • Daredevil Dan - a pilot of a small aircraft,[8] Dan is a chocolate squirrel.[5] He is the story's comic relief.[8]
  • Sunshine Goodness - a spokesperson for a raisin company[8]
  • Lady X - The antagonist, she dresses in costumes when attempting to woo Dex[8]

Cast

Production history

Larry Kasanoff and a Threshold Entertainment employee named Joshua Wexler created the concept in 1999.[8] A $25 million joint investment into the project was made by Threshold and the Korean investment company Natural Image. The producers of the film expected that foreign presales and loans against the sales would provide the remaining portion of the budget. The estimated remainder was $50 million.[5]

The film was created and produced by the digital effects shop at Threshold, located in Santa Monica, California in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. In late 2002-early 2003, Larry Kasanoff reported that hard drives containing unfinished assets from the movie had been stolen in what he called an act of "industrial espionage".[11] The film was supposed to use a "squash and stretch" style but after production resumed in 2004, Kasanoff changed it to a computer graphics style, with the result being that "He and animators were speaking two different languages."[12]

Lionsgate established a distribution deal and the financing company StoryArk represented investors who gave $20 million in funding to Threshold in 2005 due to the Lionsgate deal, the celebrity voice actors, and the product tie-ins.[12] A release date in 2005 was later announced, but missed. Another distribution deal was struck in 2007, but again, nothing came of it.[11] Lionsgate had a negative reception to the delays. The investors had grown impatient due to the film production company defaulting on its secured promissory note and the release dates that were not met.[12] Finally, in 2011, the film was auctioned for $2.5 million.[11] StoryArk investors had ultimately invoked a clause in their contract that allowed the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, which had insured Foodfight!, to, as inexpensively and quickly as possible, complete and then release the film.[12]

Release

The insurance company received the copyright to the film in 2012 and began releasing it and its associated merchandise.[12] In June 2012, Foodfight! received a limited release in the United Kingdom, grossing £13,003 on its opening weekend,[1] and it was released on DVD in Europe that October.[13][14] In February 2013, the film was released on VOD[15] and was released on DVD in the United States in May 2013.[16] Jake Rossen of The New York Times described the film's U.S. release as "a muted debut".[8] The United States release was delayed because the U.S. distributor, Viva Entertainment, wanted to release it when Walmart could arrange for a satisfactory product display for the film. Victor Elizalde, the president of the company, stated that it had made a small investment and did not state how large the investment was; he stated that after the investment the film was "already profitable".[12]

Beginning in 2012 Foodfight! merchandise was released. In-store appearances and eBay listings for storybooks and plush toys began at that time.[12]

Reception

At the time Foodfight! was announced, the film was denounced for taking product placement to the extreme, and doing it in a film targeted at children.[17] The AV Club stated that "...the grotesque ugliness of the animation alone would be a deal-breaker even if the film weren’t also glaringly inappropriate in its sexuality, nightmare-inducing in its animation, and filled with Nazi overtones and iconography even more egregiously unfit for children than the script’s wall-to-wall gauntlet of crude double entendres and weird intimations of interspecies sex."[18] Online reviewer The Nostalgia Critic (Doug Walker) declared it the worst animated movie of all time.[19]

References

  1. ^ a b "UK Box Office: 15 - 17 June 2012". UK Film Council. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
  2. ^ Amidi, Amid (August 10, 2013). "Why "Foodfight!" Cost $45 Million And Was Still Unwatchable". Cartoon Brew. Retrieved March 5, 2014.
  3. ^ "Foodfight! - International Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved March 3, 2014.
  4. ^ Eisenberg, Daniel. Time, 2 September 2002, "It's an Ad, Ad, Ad World". Accessed 23 August 2011.
  5. ^ a b c d Taub, Eric A. "For This Animated Movie, a Cast of Household Names." The New York Times. May 17, 2004. Retrieved on 23 August 2011.
  6. ^ DeMott, Rick. Animation World Network, 23 September 2011. "Foodfight Animated Feature Up for Auction". Accessed 24 November 2011.
  7. ^ The Hollywood Reporter, 23 September 2011. "NOTICE OF PUBLIC SALE - ANIMATED FEATURE MOTION PICTURE: 'FOODFIGHT'".
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Rossen, Jake. "Placing Products? Try Casting Them." The New York Times. August 11, 2013. p. 1. Retrieved on March 24, 2014.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Official cast list. Accessed December 23, 2009.
  10. ^ a b c "Foodfight! Cast". Allrovi. Retrieved June 4, 2011.
  11. ^ a b c Mallory, Michael (May 31, 2012). "The Long, Strange Odyssey of 'Foodfight!'". Animation Magazine. Retrieved January 1, 2013.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g "Placing Products? Try Casting Them." The New York Times. August 11, 2013. p. 2. Retrieved on March 24, 2014.
  13. ^ Beck, Jerry (7 May 2012). ""Foodfight!" Coming To DVD". Cartoon Brew. Retrieved 15 May 2012. The latest word is that England's Boulevard Entertainment has picked up the rights for DVD – in Europe.
  14. ^ "Foodfight!". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
  15. ^ "Twinkies Live On -- in Film! Foodfight Will Hit Screens in 2013 From Viva Pictures". Marketwire. 19 November 2012. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
  16. ^ "Foodfight! (2012)". Amazon.com. Retrieved March 5, 2013.
  17. ^ Commercial Alert Criticizes Movie-Length Ad Targeted at Kids
  18. ^ Rabin, Nathan (February 27, 2013) Supermarket Brands Sponsored Case File #34: Foodfight!, The AV Club, retrieved April 17, 2013
  19. ^ http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/42895-foodfight
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