The Simpsons Movie
June 9, 2005

A spokesperson for the long-running animated series “The Simpsons” confirms that the wheels have finally begun turning on a process that will bring Springfield’s yellow-skinned
denizens to the big screen. The show’s principal voice actors — including Dan Castellaneta as Homer, Nancy Cartwright as Bart and Hank Azaria as downtrodden drink dispenser Moe Szyslak — assembled recently under the watchful gaze of series creator Matt Groening for one of the first steps in creating a movie version of the hit show.

“They did do the script read, that is correct,” “Simpsons” rep Antonia Kaughman said, addressing statements made by Cartwright that the film was moving forward. “It was all of our six principal actors, and then we have a couple secondary actors, and they do all of Springfield — over 100 characters amongst them.”

Loyal fans of the series have enjoyed superstar cameos ranging from Michael Jackson to 50 Cent, but no celebrities were present at the script read. “I think if there was going to be guest stars, that would come way down the line,” Kaughman insisted. “They’ll add them later.”

Although talk of a “Simpsons” movie has floated around Hollywood for nearly a decade, Groening has often insisted that the show’s highly respected writing staff would need to wait for the program to go off the air before it could devote the necessary time to a feature film script. With the 17th season currently being prepared, a plan has finally been devised that will allow the show and movie to be produced simultaneously.

“Now we’re going to get the best of both worlds, evidently,” Kaughman said. “Matt just kind of laughs, because we always said there was no way to pull the writers off or go hire writers that haven’t worked on the show. … They finally worked out a movie team, a team of the writers, because we could never hire outside writers — they had to be ‘Simpsons’ writers, and most of them were working on the show. Well, they finally put this team together that has time on the side, and they’ve been working on the script. So [the movie] won’t be at the end of the series — they’ll be working simultaneously.”

While this might be great news for the armies of fans dying to see the Springfield tire fire on a 30-foot-tall screen, the truth is that the table reading is just the first of many necessary production steps. “All we know is that there is a script written; we don’t even have a title for the script — it just keeps being called ‘The Simpsons Movie,’ ” Kaughman said. Adding that the film will have the show’s traditional-animation look rather than the more polished, nearly three-dimensional look popularized by such modern-day blockbusters as “The Incredibles” and “Shrek,” she said there is “no release date — we don’t have the animation house lined up yet.”

Still, the spokesperson insisted, the time has finally come for the show’s loyalists to officially get excited. “For the fans, something is in the works. Who knows what will come out, but at least it is on the road.”