Ever sinceThe Simpsons Moviehit theaters and grossed over half a billion dollars, there have been rumors about a sequel. The producers have never fully denied it as a possibility, but similarly, aSimpsons Moviesequel has never been in active development. Given the financial success of the first one, it’s always seemed inevitable that a second movie would eventually become a reality – it just had to serve the right business interests.
Now thatDisney has acquired 21st Century Foxand therefore owns the rights toThe Simpsons, that seems to have happened. Series creator Matt Groening has said that he has “no doubts” there will eventually be a secondSimpsonsmovie in the wake of the Mouse House acquiring the show. But do we really need anotherSimpsonsmovie?
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Back in 2007,The Simpsons Moviearrived as a breath of fresh air. The movie was highly anticipated, butthe series’ decline in qualityand the overall disappointing nature of TV-to-movie adaptations in general suggested audiences might be in for a dud. But unlike the movie versions ofEntourage,Downton Abbey,Twin Peaks, and countless others,The Simpsons Movieis much more than just a mega-sized episode of the series.
With quadruple the runtime, the writers packed in four times the jokes, four times the plot points, and four times the emotional oomph. Whereasthe averageSimpsonsepisodehas to wrap up any marital squabble between Homer and Marge in just 22 minutes, the movie used its feature-length runtime to really explore what would happen if Homer screwed up so badly that Marge actually left him for good, and the result was surprisingly powerful, largely thanks to Julie Kavner’s incredible performance.
It holds up to repeat viewings as well asany beloved “golden age” episode, because like the show’s classic early installments,The Simpsons Movieis bursting at the seams with smart, timeless gags, from churchgoers and barflies switching places in the face of imminent doom to Bart’s cleverly censored – and, for a brief moment, uncensored – skateboard ride to Krusty Burger in his birthday suit. Unfortunately for the writing staff, all of this means that a second movie would have even higher audience expectations than the first one.
ShowrunnerAl Jean tweetedthat the season 26 episode “The Man Who Came to Be Dinner” was held back because the producers considered it to be cinematic enough to be turned into a movie. However, when the episode aired and its premise of the Simpsons traveling to Kang and Kodos’ home planet was stretched thin at just 22 minutes, fans were more relieved that these plans were abandoned than anything else. This is an amusing premise in theory, but it doesn’t open itself up to much relatability and relatability has beenthe key toThe Simpsons’ three-decade longevity. This dysfunctional yellow family might live in an exaggerated cartoon world, but they’ve always felt like a real family.
The beauty of the firstSimpsons Movieis that underneath the high-concept premise of Springfield being trapped in a dome, the Simpsons themselves were going through real, grounded family conflicts. Everybody had an emotional arc that brought them closer together or made them better versions of themselves. In “The Man Who Came to Be Dinner,” the outlandish high-concept sci-fi premise took precedence and there was no emotional substance.
Ultimately, for aSimpsons Moviesequel to work, the writers will need to come up with an idea that has as much potential as the first movie’s pre-Under the Domedomed city concept. The difficulty of coming up with such an idea is probably why it’s taken so long to make aSimpsons Movie 2. Maybe the series’ newer writers, who are content to put out mostly lackluster episodes each year, shouldn’t be involved in a potential second movie at all. Based on the half-baked nature of most modernSimpsonsepisodes, it seems like the majority of the current crop of writers aren’t interested in making their scripts as airtight ashall-of-famers like John Swartzwelderdid in the show’s early days.
The originalSimpsons Moviewas credited to a crack team of 11 screenwriters, including Groening, Jean, and series co-developer (and revered filmmaker) James L. Brooks. Groeningsaid of the writing processfor the film, “We were able to get the best all-star writers ofThe Simpsonsand write our hearts out.” If theSimpsonsproducers are able to come up with a juicy premise worthy of taking up an hour and a half of audiences’ time on the big screen, they should re-assemble all the A-list writers fromSimpsonshistory who made the original movie such a delight, and whodefined the uniquely absurdist toneofThe Simpsonsin the first place.
