While most of the focus at the movies this weekend will be on Wonder Woman, there's another superhero making their big screen debut as well, Captain Underpants. While this character hasn't been waiting nearly as long as Wonder Woman to make their big screen debut, the desire to adapt the book series into a film has been almost as strong. Dreamworks Animation wanted to make a Captain Underpants movie so badly that they went to a hilarious extreme. Apparently, when the studio had author Dav Pilkey visiting their campus, several executives met him while wearing their underwear outside their pants. That's dedication.
What led to such extreme measures? According to the LA Times, while Hollywood has been interested in making a Captain Underpants movie since practically back when the books debuted in 1997, author Dav Pilkey has been famously tight-fisted with the rights. He was so focused on making sure that his books turned out they way he wanted, that he wasn't going to let anything else distract him. This apparently led Dreamworks Animation to decide that they needed to do something drastic to wow the author. For whatever it's worth, it apparently worked. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie arrives in theaters today from Dreamworks Animation.
What's even more entertaining about this story is the way in which the Dreamworks executives apparently took the entire thing quite seriously. what Dav Pilkey remembers most about the experience of seeing a bunch of people, probably in suits, wearing their underwear on the outside, is the way that nobody at Dreamworks apparently acted like there was anything funny going on. According to Pilkey...
They were completely straight-faced --- it was so funny
The book series Captain Underpants follows two kids who hypnotize their school principal, turning him into the superhero Captain Underpants. As you can likely guess from the title, the material is designed to appeal to a juvenile sense of humor, which has led many adults to be critical of the series. Children, on the other hand, have loved the books, because of course they do.
While the movie will almost certainly be overshadowed this weekend by DC's major comic book release, Dreamworks didn't do anything to short change the Captain Underpants film, the voice cast is top notch and includes Kevin Hart and Silicon Valley's Thomas Middleditch in the roles of lead characters George and Harold, as well as Ed Helms as the principal/Captain Underpants. Jordan Peele, Kristen Schaal, and Nick Kroll also appear.
We certainly hope the movie does well for Dreamworks Animation, any studio with enough desire to make a movie that it results in them walking around with their clothes on backward deserves to have such dedication rewarded. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is in theaters now.
