Since its debut in 1999, SpongeBob SquarePants has been both a big success for Nickelodeon and a cultural icon for kids and adults alike. A new era is now approaching, and after 12 seasons on the air and two successful movies (with a third on the way), it's finally time for a big spinoff. Are you ready kids? If not, get ready because the prequel Kamp Koral was just given the green light by Nickelodeon.
Kamp Koral will feature many, if not all, the characters that SpongeBob SquarePants fans know and love, although they'll be quite different in this spinoff. The prequel series will feature a 10-year-old SpongeBob & Co. as they attend Kamp Koral, which is described as a sleepaway summer camp. While there, SpongeBob and his pals (and probably a nemesis or two) will engage in activities like catching jellyfish, building underwater campfires, and all the other types of things that one may do at camp.
One big difference between SpongeBob SquarePants and Kamp Koral is that the new spinoff, Deadline reported, will be created with CG animation. These characters have been seen in CG before in the movie The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, and it's possible fan reception may have influenced Nickelodeon's decision to pursue that over traditional animation. That, or it's cheaper.
It's worth noting that the upcoming movie for SpongeBob, The SpongeBob Movie: It's a Wonderful Sponge, is said to feature this exact premise. In what's described as an origin story, audiences will see SpongeBob meet all the friends that are in his life later in Kamp Koral.
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That movie isn't expected to release until July 17, 2020, so one would imagine that the Kamp Koral series won't come out until after its release. Production on Kamp Koral is slated to start in June, with SpongeBob SquarePants' Marc Ceccarelli and Vincent Waller co-executive producing this initial 13-episode order.
Unless Kamp Koral is actually a build-up to The SpongeBob Movie: It's a Wonderful Sponge, which is a slight possibility. Nickelodeon's Rugrats series set up Baby Dil's birth in The Rugrats Movie, although its spinoff came much later and was unrelated to any of the movies. With the descriptions between Kamp Koral and the upcoming third SpongeBob movie so similar, it's really hard to determine with certainty where either will fall in the SpongeBob timeline.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the SpongeBob SquarePants spinoff news is that it's taken this long for it to happen. The series has been the number one children's animated TV show for the past 17 years, and has amassed a huge following worldwide with its stories of a pineapple dwelling sponge and his adventures at work and other places. Will Kamp Koral have the same success as the flagship Nickelodeon series?
As mentioned, development on Kamp Koral begins in June for Nickelodeon, so be sure to stick with CinemaBlend for any details that pop up concerning the upcoming spinoff in the meantime.
