Bigfoot Family

Last updated
Bigfoot Family
Bigfoot family xlg.jpg
Film poster
Directed by
Screenplay by
Story byBen Stassen
Based on
A character
by
  • Bob Barlen
  • Cal Brunker
Produced by
  • Ben Stassen
  • Caroline Van Iseghem
  • Matthieu Zeller
Cinematography
  • Ben Stassen
  • Jeremy Degruson
Music by Puggy
Production
companies
nWave Pictures
Octopolis
Distributed byCharades
Release date
  • August 5, 2020 (2020-08-05)
Running time
97 minutes
CountriesBelgium
France
LanguagesFrench
English
Box office$11 million [1]

Bigfoot Family is a 2020 animated adventure film directed by Ben Stassen and Jeremy Degruson. It is the sequel to the 2017 film The Son of Bigfoot . Bigfoot has become famous after returning home and uses his fame to fight an oil company. When he disappears without a trace, it is up to Adam, his mother, and their animal friends to rescue him. The film was also released as Bigfoot Superstar.

Contents

Plot

Two months after Bigfoot returns home, [a] Adam becomes overwhelmed with the attention his father's newfound fame has brought to the family. He is also struggling to confess his feelings to his crush, Emma.

Bigfoot wants to use his fame for a good cause. After some protesters send him a letter about trying to stop Xtract, an Alaska oil company that claims to have zero environmental impact on wildlife, Bigfoot decides to travel to Alaska to help them. Adam helps his father by uploading a promotional video to social media. Swathes of protesters arrive to support Bigfoot. One night, while trying to get a closer look at the company after hearing a loud rumble, Bigfoot mysteriously disappears. Adam and his mother Shelly journey with Wilbur and Trapper to Alaska in their van to find and rescue him.

Arriving in Alaska, Adam and Shelly meet with Arlo Woodstock, the protester who last saw Bigfoot. Shelly follows Woodstock while Adam, Wilbur, and Trapper stay behind. While waiting in the van, they are ambushed by Xtract guards who tranquilize Wilbur and Trapper, but Adam escapes. Adam encounters a wolf who threatens to hurt him, but he strikes a deal with Adam to help him.

The wolf guides Adam to Xtract's worksite before departing. Xtract is revealed to be destroying wildlife by using small explosions to excavate oil. Adam explores the inside of the company and finds Xtract CEO Connor Mandrake planning to set up a massive bomb so that he can excavate the oil easier, but this will destroy the valley. Adam records Mandrake on his phone to expose him. Afterwards, Adam is found by Woodstock, but Adam finds out that Woodstock actually works for Xtract and is responsible for taking Bigfoot and Shelly. Woodstock captures Adam and pushes him into the underground mines.

Mandrake prepares the bomb. After finding Shelly and freeing Bigfoot, Adam escapes with them through the mines. Xtract drones are sent to stop them, but Bigfoot destroys them. While they escape, Adam manages to upload the videos, exposing Xtract online, before losing his phone. Adam turns back and defuses the bomb, but Mandrake gets a backup bomb that cannot be turned off to trigger the explosion. With help from Wilbur and Trapper, Bigfoot takes hold of it and throws it in the air, creating a signal explosion. Mandrake confronts them, but the news shows up in a helicopter, as does the police. Mandrake attempts to escape but is interrupted by a moose and thrown into an oil puddle alongside Woodstock.

Some time later, Adam meets with Emma, who reveals that one of the videos he accidentally uploaded was the one exposing his feelings to her. He asks Emma out, and she accepts. Emma kisses Adam while his eavesdropping family congratulates him.

The movie ends as Trapper asks for another pancake, and it goes on his face, much to his dismay.

Voice cast

Production

Production for Bigfoot Family began shortly before the release of nWave's seventh animated feature film, The Queen's Corgi . The film follows The Son of Bigfoot , which came out in theaters in 2018. [2] The studio teased the production of the movie at the 2020 Paris Images Digital Summit. [3]

Music

After collaborating with nWave Pictures on the soundtrack of the first film, music band Puggy agreed to score the soundtrack of Bigfoot Family. Puggy collaborated with Sylvie Hoarau  [ fr ] for the single "Out in the Open" with the authorization of Sony Music, which is featured in the film during Adam's road trip to Alaska.

Release

In June 2020, Bigfoot Family premiered at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. [4] At the festival, it was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film. [5] Bigfoot Family premiered on Netflix on February 26, 2021. It was the #1 movie on Netflix [6] in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK on its opening weekend and remained the #1 movie in the US for six days in a row. [7]

Controversy

In March 2021, the movie was targeted by the Canadian Energy Centre, an agency created and funded by the government of Alberta to promote the oil industry and defend it from critics, including environmentalists. [8] The Canadian Energy Centre, also called the "energy war room," published a website that accused the movie and its American distributor, Netflix, of "brainwashing" children with misinformation. The website, which was titled Support Canadian Energy, included a petition, and 3,400 letters were sent to the movie company. The controversy increased viewership on Netflix, and the movie director thanked the CEC for the free publicity. [9]

Notes

  1. As depicted in The Son of Bigfoot (2017)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noah Baumbach</span> American filmmaker (born 1969)

Noah Baumbach is an American filmmaker. He is known for making light comedies set in New York City and his works are inspired by filmmakers such as Woody Allen and Whit Stillman. His frequent collaborators include Wes Anderson, Adam Driver and his wife, Greta Gerwig.

<i>Meet the Robinsons</i> 2007 animated Disney film

Meet the Robinsons is a 2007 American animated science-fiction comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is loosely based on the 1990 children's book A Day with Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce. The film was directed by Stephen J. Anderson and produced by Dorothy McKim, from a screenplay that Anderson co-wrote with Don Hall, Nathan Greno, Joe Mateo, Jon Bernstein, Michelle Spitz, and Aurian Redson. The film stars the voices of Daniel Hansen and Jordan Fry, Wesley Singerman, Angela Bassett, Tom Selleck, Harland Williams, Laurie Metcalf, Nicole Sullivan, Adam West, Ethan Sandler, Tom Kenny, and Anderson. It follows an orphaned 12-year-old inventor, Lewis, who is desperate to be adopted. He meets Wilbur Robinson, a young time-traveler who takes him to the year 2037 to visit his eccentric family. They must prevent a mysterious bowler-hatted man from changing Lewis's fate, and, by proxy, the future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Danna</span> Canadian film composer

Jeff Danna is a Canadian film composer. He has composed or co-composed scores for a wide range of films and television, including The Boondock Saints (1999), Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Silent Hill (2006), The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009), The Good Dinosaur (2015), Storks (2016), The Breadwinner (2017), The Addams Family (2019), Onward (2020), Guillermo Del Toro’s Tales of Arcadia (2019-2021), Nora Twomey’s My Father’s Dragon (2022) and Julia (2022).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jorge R. Gutierrez</span> Mexican animator (born 1975)

Jorge R. Gutierrez is a Mexican-American animator, writer, producer, director, painter, and voice actor. He co-created with Sandra Equihua the Nickelodeon animated series El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, co-wrote and directed The Book of Life, Son of Jaguar for Google, and Maya and the Three for Netflix Animation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Osborne (filmmaker)</span> American filmmaker (born 1970)

Mark Randolph Osborne is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and animator. He is best known for directing the animated films Kung Fu Panda (2008) and The Little Prince (2015), the former of which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. He also directed the stop-motion short film More (1998), which was nominated for Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick McHale (artist)</span> American animator

Patrick Nolen McHale is an American animator, storyboard artist, screenwriter, director, and musician. McHale is well known for creating the animated television miniseries Over the Garden Wall.

<i>Animal Crackers</i> (2017 film) 2017 animated film

Animal Crackers is a 2017 animated comedy-fantasy film directed by Scott Christian Sava and Tony Bancroft, written by Sava and Dean Lorey and based on the animal-shaped cookie. The film features the voices of Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Danny DeVito, Ian McKellen, Sylvester Stallone, Patrick Warburton, Raven-Symoné, Harvey Fierstein, Wallace Shawn, Gilbert Gottfried, Tara Strong, James Arnold Taylor, Kevin Grevioux, and Lydia Rose Taylor in her film debut. It tells the story of a family who comes across a box of magical animal crackers that turns anyone that consumes a cracker into the animal that the cracker represents and this animal handily saves the circus that the family was associated with.

<i>Hotel Transylvania</i> American animated media franchise

Hotel Transylvania is an American media franchise created by Todd Durham and owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment. It consists of four animated feature films, three short films, an animated television series, and several video games.

<i>Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation</i> 2018 American film by Genndy Tartakovsky

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation is a 2018 American animated monster comedy film produced by Sony Pictures Animation and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. It is the third installment in the Hotel Transylvania franchise and the sequel to Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015), the film was directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, written by Tartakovsky and Michael McCullers, and features Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, Sadie Sandler, David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key, Asher Blinkoff and Mel Brooks reprising their roles, with new additions to the cast including Jim Gaffigan, Kathryn Hahn, Joe Jonas, Chrissy Teigen, Joe Whyte, Tara Strong and Tartakovsky, while Chris Parnell, who voiced The Fly in the first two films, voices Stan. In the film, Dracula finds love with a ship captain named Ericka while he embarks on a vacation on a luxury cruise liner with his family and friends, but Mavis later discovers that Ericka is actually the great-granddaughter of Abraham Van Helsing, Drac's arch-nemesis who secretly plan to destroy them.

nWave Studios Studio of animated films

nWave Studios is an animation studio based in Brussels, Belgium with an office in Los Angeles, California.

<i>The Son of Bigfoot</i> 2017 animated fantasy comedy film

The Son of Bigfoot is a 2017 animated fantasy comedy film directed by Ben Stassen and Jeremy Degruson. Written by Bob Barlen and Cal Brunker, based on their own original screenplay Son of Bigfoot, the film follows a teen boy who, after beginning to erupt unusual changes, sets out to find his father, who happens to be Bigfoot and had gone into hiding from a corrupt CEO of a hair company.

<i>The Mitchells vs. the Machines</i> 2021 American computer-animated film by Mike Rianda

The Mitchells vs. the Machines is a 2021 animated science fiction comedy film produced by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation. The film was directed by Mike Rianda and co-directed by Jeff Rowe, from a screenplay written by both of them. Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Kurt Albrecht served as producers. The film stars the voices of Danny McBride, Abbi Jacobson, Maya Rudolph, Rianda, Eric André, and Olivia Colman, with Fred Armisen, Beck Bennett, John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, Blake Griffin, Conan O'Brien, and Doug the Pug in supporting roles. It follows the dysfunctional Mitchell family that must save Earth from a global uprising of robots while on a road trip.

<i>Looney Tunes Cartoons</i> American animated television series

Looney Tunes Cartoons is an American animated television series developed by Pete Browngardt and produced by Warner Bros. Animation, based on the characters from Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. The series made its worldwide debut at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 10, 2019, and premiered on HBO Max on May 27, 2020.

<i>Klaus</i> (film) 2019 Spanish animated Christmas film

Klaus is a 2019 animated Christmas adventure comedy film written and directed by Sergio Pablos in his directorial debut, produced by his company The SPA Studios and distributed by Netflix. Co-written by Zach Lewis and Jim Mahoney, and co-directed by Carlos Martinez Lopez, the traditionally animated film stars the voices of Jason Schwartzman, J.K. Simmons, Rashida Jones, Will Sasso, Neda Margrethe Labba, Sergio Pablos, Norm Macdonald, and Joan Cusack. Serving as an alternate origin story of Santa Claus independent from the historical Saint Nicholas of Myra and using a fictional 19th-century setting, the plot revolves around a postman stationed in an island town to the Far North who befriends a reclusive toymaker (Klaus).

The Canadian Energy Centre Limited (CEC), also commonly called the "Energy War Room", was an Alberta provincial corporation mandated to promote Alberta's energy industry and rebut "domestic and foreign-funded campaigns against Canada's oil and gas industry".

<i>Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days</i> 2019 Canadian short film

Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days is a 2019 Canadian-Portuguese-French co-produced animated short film, directed by Regina Pessoa. The film is a tribute to Pessoa's real-life uncle Tomás, who suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder but was a key inspiration on her decision to pursue a career in the arts.

<i>Jungle Beat: The Movie</i> 2020 Mauritian film

Jungle Beat: The Movie is a 2020 animated film directed by Brent Dawes, based on the characters of the television series Jungle Beat. It tells the story of a homesick alien who crash-lands his spaceship near the colorful African Jungle. His new animal friends need to get him back to his ship and teach him about friendship and fun before his Space-Conqueror father can take over the planet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Netflix Animation</span> American animation studio

Netflix Animation is an American animation studio and a subsidiary of Netflix, Inc. It was founded in March 2018. The studio primarily produces and develops animated programs and feature films hosted on the Netflix streaming service.

<i>Hayop Ka!</i> 2020 Philippine adult animated film

Hayop Ka!, also known as Hayop Ka! , Hayop Ka! The Nimfa Dimaano Story, and You Animal!, is a 2020 Philippine adult animated romantic comedy film directed by Avid Liongoren. It features a voice cast topbilled by Angelica Panganiban, Robin Padilla, and Sam Milby. Panganiban voices Nimfa, an anthropomorphic feline who works as a perfume saleswoman and whose boyfriend, a mongrel named Roger (Padilla), is employed as a janitor. When Nimfa meets Iñigo (Milby), a wealthy dog with a career as a high-profile entrepreneur, she finds herself in the middle of a love triangle.

References

  1. "Bigfoot Family Box Office". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved December 9, 2020.
  2. "Ben Stassen Set to Direct 3D Animated Sequel "Bigfoot Superstar". Variety.com. 23 October 2018. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  3. "NWave attends Paris Images Digital Summit". 31 January 2020.
  4. ""Bigfoot Family" selected for 2020 Annecy Festival". nWave Pictures. May 18, 2020. Retrieved August 3, 2020.
  5. "The Annecy Festival reveals the final part of its Official Selection and its juries!" (Press release). Annecy International Animation Film Festival. May 18, 2020. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
  6. Calfee, Joel (2021-03-01). "Netflix's New #1 Movie 'Bigfoot Family' Is Basically 'The Lorax' Meets 'Finding Nemo'". PureWow. Retrieved 2021-03-06.
  7. "Bigfoot Family [2020]". FlixPatrol. Retrieved 2021-03-06.
  8. "Alberta's war room accuses Netflix cartoon Bigfoot Family of 'peddling lies' about oil industry". thestar.com. 2021-03-12. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  9. "'It's silly': Director of Bigfoot movie thanks campaign by Alberta's energy war room". CBC News. March 28, 2021.