The Bullet Is Helping Me!

The Bullet Is Helping Me! is a 2005 traditional-animated comedy film produced by Paramount Pictures and Rough Draft Studios. The film was directed by Richard Lester, written by Thomas Lennon, and stars Will Ferrell, Mike Myers, Jack Black, Tim Allen, and Steve Carell. The film was released in the United States on June 11, 2005, by Paramount Pictures and received positive reviews from critics.

Plot
Coming Soon!

Cast

 * Mike Myers as Derek "Quiet" Clarke, an awful singer who doesn't know how to speak up.
 * Tim Allen as Zachary Lart, the humble bassist of Derek's awful band.
 * Jack Black as Olivier Brians, the sarcastic guitarist of Derek's awful band.
 * Will Ferrell as Tony "Lunatic" Robbe, the crazy drummer of Derek's awful band.
 * Steve Carell as Lark, their illegal talking pet penguin.
 * Billy West as Joel Domber, Zachary's friend
 * Neil Ross as Brian Krickles, a news anchor
 * Carlos Alazraqui as Willie Darbles, the co-anchor to Brian Krickles.

Additional Voices

 * Tara Strong
 * E.G Daily
 * Frank Welker
 * Tom Kenny
 * Billy West
 * Audel LaRoque
 * Jennifer Tilly
 * Thomas Lennon
 * Jay Leno

Development
In the late March 2002, Richard Lester thought up of a strange band that performs songs badly with a penguin. Lester un-retired and decided to adapt this into a movie. On April 1, 2002, Lester had pitched the idea to Paramount Pictures, and they accepted. On April 8, 2002, Paramount announced that it is having producer and screenplay try-outs for an untitled traditional-animated movie that would later turn into "The Bullet Is Helping Me!". He thought that Thomas Lennon and Joe Stillman did the scripts the best, so he hired them as the screenplay writers, and Jim Anderson and Brad Lewis being the best producers. During the hiring for character designers and art director, Lester thought that Jimmy Feder did the main characters the best, so he chose him to be the character designer and art director.

Casting
Originally, Billy West was cast to play Derek Clarke, but Lester didn't like how he did Derek, so he decided to make Billy play as Joel Domber. Lester saw some works Mike Myers did, and he knew exactly who to cast as Derek. He thought that Mike Myers would do the role great due to how he can make his voice sound nothing like himself. He contacted Mike Myers, and Mike accepted to do the role. Thomas Lennon had approached Lester a day later, and recommended Jay Leno to play Olivier Brians. Jay had declined the role, but he offered Lennon that he could be in a smaller role in the movie. Lennon accepted his offer and Jay Leno ended up playing some additional voices. Joe Stillman recommended Will Ferrell to play Olivier. Lester thought he fit the role, so he contacted Will Ferrell. However; Lester had made a mistake while contacting Will Ferrell, he had meant to write "Olivier Brians", but instead wrote "Tony Brians". Ferrell accepted the offer. When Ferrell came to the studio, he said "So, I'm playing Tony Brians, right?". Lester had then realized that he made a mistake during when he wrote the offer. Lester had replied to Ferrell, jokingly saying "I dunno who Tony Brians is, but I do know who Tony Robbe is, and you're playing him!". Lester had decided for Ferrell to play Tony Robbe instead of Olivier. Some people auditioned to play Zachary Lart, one of them being Carlos Alazraqui, who got to do Willie Darbles instead. However; one of the auditioners really stuck out to Lester and Lennon: Tim Allen. They really thought he did the role perfect, so they hired him. Jack Black had also auditioned, originally going for Lark, but he changed his mind and decided to audition for Olivier Brians. Jack Black had recommended Steve Carrell, a former writer of Saturday Night Live, to play Lark. Steve Carrell at first wasn't too sure of playing Lark, but he accepted. After a week of auditioning for Brian Krickles, they thought that Neil Ross did Brian the best out of all of the people who auditioned for Brian. 54 people were accepted for additional voices, only 9 of the 54 people who did the additional voices are voice actors. Recording started on April 16, 2002, and ended on June 13, 2002.

Animation
The animation was done by Rough Draft Studios. They started animating on July 1, 2002, and ended on September 20, 2004 (26 months, 19 days). Cleanup started on September 22, 2004, and ended on January 16, 2005 (3 months, 24 days). After 3 weeks after all of the animation was done, the date for the movie to release was set: June 11, 2005.

Marketing
On November 1, 2003, a teaser trailer was released, and was attached to films such as The Cat in the Hat, Elf, and Looney Tunes: Back in Action. The first theatrical trailer was released on January 17, 2004, which had some footage of some scenes which were deleted from the movie. These deleted scenes can be found on the DVD and Blu-ray releases. The second theatrical trailer was released on March 20, 2004, and the third trailer was released on June 25, 2004. The fourth and last trailer was released on April 20, 2005. The film was backed by a large marketing campaign, with various merchandise becoming available throughout late 2003 to mid 2005.

Home Media
The Bullet Is Helping Me! was released on DVD and VHS on November 28, 2005. A HD DVD release was planned, but never released. The Blu-ray release came out on June 11, 2014, and the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray version was released on June 17, 2020.

Box Office
The movie grossed $155 million in the United States and Canada, and $54 million in other territories, resulting in a box office of $203,485,293 dollars. The film was exposed to other territories more through DVD sales.

Critical Response
Coming Soon!

Future
On April 17, 2008, Paramount consulted Lester if he wanted to do a sequel to this movie. Lester had replied "The story of Derek and his band is over. No need for a sequel. It's done and over with.", resulting in plans for a sequel never happening.