Lester's Academy

Addie is a 2019 American 3D computer-animated science fiction adventure comedy film produced by Sony Pictures Animation. It is a spin-off of the 2017 animated film The Emoji Movie, in which the titular character appeared as a minor character. The film was written and directed by Geo G. and co-written by Mike Reiss, Seth Grahame-Smith, Alec Sokolow, and Joel Cohen, and stars the voice of Tati Gabrielle as the titular role, along with Josh Peck, Bella Thorne, Steve Zahn, Katherine Heigl, Bobby Cannavale, Minnie Driver, Stanley Tucci, Anthony Anderson, Josh Brolin, and Jason Genao (in his voice-acting debut). In the film, Addie signs up to the Adventure Academy, where she sets off on a mission via another dimension to rescue several creatures that were lost or abandoned in order to train to become a top adventurer. Soon, Addie finds that there is a sinister plot occurring at the academy that only she can stop.

The film had its initial world premiere in Los Angeles on February 12, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on March 1, 2019, by Sony Pictures Releasing under Columbia Pictures in 3D, Digital 3D, Dolby Cinema, IMAX, and IMAX 3D. In contrast to its predecessor, Addie proved to be a huge box office success, receiving generally positive reviews from critics, with most calling it "an improvement over The Emoji Movie" while also praising the animation, humor, screenplay, the voice performances, action sequences, emotional depth, and darker tone compared to its predecessor. It grossed $849 million worldwide against a budget of $150 million, becoming the seventh highest-grossing film of 2019 and the third highest-grossing animated film of that year, as well as Sony Pictures Animation's highest-grossing film.

A sequel, titled Addie 2, was announced and is scheduled to be released on July 15, 2022, while a television series, titled Addie: Heroes of the Galaxy, will premiere on Gingo in the spring of 2020. In addition, a prequel film is also announced.

Plot
In a small town named Carterville in 1998, young Abigail K. Slickersen is arguing with her brother Edward about whether aliens exist or not in their apartment when a mysterious spaceship crash lands in their front yard. Abigail, who is frightened, ends up attacking the unknown person who ends up being a young boy named Walter who explains that he’s been sent off on a mission in space to find aliens. Slickersen is excited about it and ends up going on the ship along with her brother out into space. While in the spaceship, all of a sudden, the engines started to fail as they ended up crash landing prompting Abigail and Walter to escape from the ship without knowing that Edward was left behind in the ship tied up. Edward is later found laid out dead on the Planet Karto prompting Abigail to start an Adventure Academy where kids are turned into great adventurers while completely forgetting about her brother.

Twenty years later, in the present day Carterville, a teenage girl named Addie McCallister zooms out the classroom in her school as soon as the bell rings for her summer break where she zips past everyone all cheerfully into her mom‘s car where her mom Wendy finds out about Addie’s erratic behavior and decides to punish her by taking away her to a boarding school that is claimed to be successful where she meets a boy named Harold Penn there. Meanwhile, Abigail Slickersen, who is now a full grown adult married to Walter, is a millionaire with her idea of an Adventure Academy being successful going as according to her plan where she still seeks out for revenge on her brother’s death.

At a lunch table, Addie finds out her best friend, Lindy Benson goes to the Academy too and saved her from the Academy‘s bully, Veronica Sanchez, resulting in Addie running away into a secret room full of mysterious aliens and robots making the assumption that the Adventure Academy is a real place. At home, Wendy and Robert are both having fun without Addie being there partying and everything when someone knocks on their door who is later revealed to be Addie on the run. Addie ends up getting caught and knocked out where she wakes up on a spaceship that is actually a virtual simulation for a lesson taught by the teacher Mr. Hotguy. As Addie becomes more interested in going on adventures she ends up signing up for one where she has to go to a whole other planet and find life on there where Lindy decides to come with her along with her fellow classmate, Harold as well.

As the ship takes off, a robot named Broom introduces himself and explains that Addie’s mom is an expert adventurer who used to be enrolled at the Adventure Academy and wants Addie to follow her footsteps. Everything is smooth until the engine starts to fail and the ship crash lands onto the planet Gutar where an inhabitant named Boon awakens Addie and her crew. After her awakening, she discovers that a voice mail was left for her stating that the Adventure Academy went to chaos due to a sinister plot with most of the students and teachers there falling under a mind control spell. Unable to reply, the Crew decides to explore the planet with Boon while coming across deep and scary monsters and rescuing lonely, abandoned aliens. At night time, the crew and Boon are at a campfire where Geraldo Simmons a long lost student comes falling out of the sky into the fire. With the help from Boon and Addie’s older brother, Mark, the crew ends up going back to the Adventure Academy to search for Slickersen.

While searching for Slickersen, Addie searched inside Slickersen's office which reveals her true plan which is capturing aliens whom Addie rescued and making them slaves in order to mine the planet's hollow while making the Adventure Academy bigger. Slickersen ends up tricking Addie resulting in the gang falling through a trap floor as Slickersen later flees to Earth in order to take over, unleashing her henchmen which are former students The Xterminator and Fangosaur to cause havoc. Addie and her friends meanwhile bounded and gagged in her secret room as the Academy is set to self destruct in 3 minutes. All of a sudden Veronica, Lois, and Mark all get the gang out. However, Mark sacrificed himself to stop the missiles from hitting the Earth, resulting in him being presumably killed as the Academy explodes.

Addie and the gang later arrive in Carterville where Slickersen pursues them into a local fair where she unleashes her henchmen onto the big crowd. As the gang battles the henchmen, Addie goes after Abigail where they fight in the electric room which controls the rides. Abigail who is angered, merges with Walter and Rocker, turning into a more buff, stronger and powerful superhuman. She reveals to Addie that she plans to kill everyone on Earth where she knocks Addie's parents out who attempt to attack Slickersen. As Addie is nearly killed, Mr. Mysterious realizes that the McCallister family are not villains at all and encourages her which gives her more power than ever. Addie who is mutated and given superhuman powers, throws an energy blast at Slickersen who is thrown into the powerbox where Addie escapes as the room blows up instantly killing Slickersen while destroying the energy source for the Adventure Academy. As Slickersen is killed, the gang ends up defeating the henchmen.

Slickersen's henchmen are later arrested as Addie and her friends are recognized as heroes of the Galaxy. During this moment, Geraldo apologizes to Harold which results in them becoming friends while Harold gives Addie a good kiss and to their surprise, Mark unexpectedly shows up and manages to reunite with his sister and her friends. At Addie's house, Wendy and Robert get a call to start up a new Adventure Academy which they agree to while Addie and her friends end up returning to their normal lifestyles.

In a mid-credits scene, Wilson and Witherspoon are placed into total locked down where they plot their revenge on Addie. In a post-credits scene, Broom, Boon, and Loonk role-play as Paradoria characters where Loonk suddenly throws up a magical red stone.

Cast

 * Tati Gabrielle as Addie McCallister, an optimistic and kind teenage girl who joins the Adventure Academy.
 * Josh Peck as Harold Penn, a rookie adventurer who is Addie's love interest.
 * Bella Thorne as Lindy Benson, a more experienced adventurer who is Addie's best friend.
 * Steve Zahn as Boon, a comical, wise-cracking lizard-like creature who befriends Addie.
 * Katherine Heigl as Abigail K. Slickersen, the widowed founder of the Adventure Academy who turns young kids into great adventurers.
 * Peyton Elizabeth Lee as a young Abigail
 * Bobby Cannavale as Walter Slickersen, Abigail's husband and assistant.
 * Max Charles as a young Walter
 * Sam Elliott as Edward Slickersen, the deceased older brother of Abigail who was mysteriously killed by an unknown person.
 * Joshua Rush as a young Edward
 * Minnie Driver as Wendy McCallister, Addie's loving overprotective mother who cares so much about her only daughter and makes sure that she doesn't go on any dangerous missions.
 * James Marsden as Broom, a robot that was invented by Wendy who helps Addie as an assistant when going on dangerous out of the world missions.
 * Stanley Tucci as Robert McCallister, Addie's overworked father who barely has time to see his own daughter.
 * Anthony Anderson as Loonk, a talkative dog-like creature who becomes Addie's pet.
 * Josh Brolin as Mr. Mysterious, a dark mysterious man that is a good family friend to the McCallisters.
 * John C. Reilly as Rocker, an alien captured to work as a slave under Abigail's rule.
 * Jason Genao as Geraldo Simmons, a youthful but apathetic experienced adventurer who is the arch-rival to Harold.
 * Scott Caan as Mark McCallister, Addie's older adult brother.
 * Dave Chappelle as Barney Witherspoon / The Xterminator, an assassin who works mysteriously in the Adventure Academy.
 * Bobb'e J. Thompson as Anthony, an emotionless elf-like martian who is Wendy's personal housemaid.
 * Kylie Jenner as Veronica Sanchez, a snobby, bratty, spoiled teenage adventurer whose parents spoil her with money and put her in the higher class of the Adventure Academy.
 * Vanessa Morgan as Lois Warner, a girl who suffers from poverty.
 * Leonardo DiCaprio as Mr. Hotguy, a teacher that works at the Adventure Academy who is known for his good looks, hence his name.
 * Geo G. as Dr. James Larza, one of the teachers at the Adventure Academy.
 * Dee Bradley Baker as Austin D. Wilson / Fangosaur, a murderous, violent monster-like creature who was originally human until a failed experiment at the Adventure Academy transforms him into a gigantic, muscular, Venom-like monster with superhuman strength and speed.

Additional Voices

 * Stephen Apostolina
 * Holly J. Barrett
 * David Cowgill
 * Jim Cummings
 * Brian T. Delaney
 * Robin Atkin Downes
 * Giselle Eisenberg
 * Eddie Frierson
 * Jessica Gee-George
 * Jackie Gonneau
 * Danielle Judovits
 * Lex Lang
 * Marcella Lentz-Pope
 * Caitlin McKenna
 * Scott Menville
 * Max Mittelman
 * Heidi Brook Myers
 * Constance Parng
 * Michelle Ruff
 * Keith Silverstein
 * Dennis Singletary
 * Fred Tatasciore
 * Kirk Thornton
 * Marcelo Tubert
 * Kari Wahlgren
 * Joe Whyte
 * Lisa Wilhoit
 * Debra Wilson
 * Matthew Wolf
 * ViviAnn Yee

Development
Based on a concept by Geo G., Addie originally began production at Universal Animation Studios in 2013 under the title Adventure Academy while Geo was still working on Nepola's Odyssey II and Imagimals. However, the project was cancelled due to creative differences but was later revived and announced in November 2017 by Sony Pictures Animation, under the new title Addie, featuring Addie McCallister from Sony's The Emoji Movie, a computer-animated film based on emojis, as the main protagonist of the film. Geo directed the film with the screenplay written by himself, Mike Reiss, Seth Grahame-Smith, Alec Sokolow, and Joel Cohen, while Jim Anderson and Henri Dosclz produced. The film remains a separate continuity to The Emoji Movie due to Geo's hopes that the film would be an improvement over it.

When Geo saw the test screening of The Emoji Movie in 2016, before it came out, he disliked and criticized the film and its story and characters, with the exception of Addie McCallister, whom Geo found as the "only decent character" in the film due to her characteristics; Geo described the character as "a younger cartoon version of Mono from Shadow of the Colossus". Because of this, Geo had expressed interest in making a stand-alone animated film starring Addie McCallister unrelated to The Emoji Movie with Sony. The updated title was originally named Addie: Adventure Academy, but the "Adventure Academy" subtitle was later removed.

Casting
Alongside the film's initial announcement, it was confirmed that Tati Gabrielle would reprise her role as Addie. In April 2018, it was announced that Josh Peck, Katherine Heigl, Steve Zahn, Bobby Cannavale, Minnie Driver, Stanley Tucci, John C. Reilly, and Sam Elliott had joined the film's voice cast. On June 23, 2018, James Marsden was added to the cast after an announcement via Sony’s Instagram.

On December 12, 2018, along with the release of the second official trailer, Sony confirmed the full cast for the film, with Reilly, Elliott, and Marsden revealed to be voicing Rocker, Edward Slickerson, and Broom respectively. Additionally newer characters were introduced with Anthony Anderson being revealed to be voicing the character Loonk, as well as Bella Thorne, Josh Brolin, and Jason Genao as Lindy Benson, Mr. Mysterious, and Geraldo respectively with the latter having his debut voice-acting role.

Animation and design
The film's animation was provided by Sony Pictures Imageworks, who also provided animation for The Emoji Movie and other Sony animated films. With an exception of the titular protagonist and some of the other characters, the character designs were based around Geo's traditional drawing style. By November 2018, Geo G. considered a possible post-credits scene that can be added continuing its tradition for post-credit scenes.

Music
On June 13, 2018, it was announced that Lorne Balfe would compose the score for the film. The soundtrack was released on March 1, 2019 by Sony Classical Records.

Release
Addie was released in the United States on March 1, 2019, in IMAX and 3D. It was previously scheduled to be released on March 29, 2019, then on February 22, 2019. The film was released in China on April 19, 2019.

The film is rated PG by the MPAA for “prolonged sequences of sci-fi action violence, mild language, rude humor, and scary images.”

Marketing
At the Sony Animation presentation at CinemaCon 2018, "unfinished and unseen footage" was seen, revealing that the film will focus on Addie McCallister going on a journey. The first trailer was released via Sony Pictures Entertainment's YouTube channel on May 29, 2018, and debuted before Computeropolis: The Deep Web three days later. The trailer has received a mixed to positive reception from critics, with many of whom said that the film is a major improvement over The Emoji Movie and praised the storytelling and animation, but some criticized its recycled minor character from the aforementioned film as the protagonist. The first official trailer was released on September 26, 2018, being attached to Smallfoot.

The second official trailer was released on December 13, 2018, being attached to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and introduced 4 more newer characters as well as revealed more actors being cast. The trailers received a more positive reception from critics, with many of whom said that the film has more humor and heart than The Emoji Movie with more better-looking animation as well.

On March 16, 2019, Sony published the screenplay online.

Video games
Geo mentioned in April 2018 that the film would be accompanied by a video game inspired by Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. The game, titled Addie: A Journey in Paradise, was released for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows on February 26, 2019.

To coincide with the film's release, Addie appears as a DLC playable character in the fighting game Fighting Royale 3.

Home media
Addie was released on digital on June 11, 2019 and on Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray, and DVD on June 25, 2019 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. All releases include the short film Boon Time.

Box office
Addie grossed $322.3 million in the United States and Canada and $527.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $849.8 million. On March 3, 2019, the film surpassed The Emoji Movie's lifeline worldwide total of $217.9 million. On March 9, 2019, the film surpassed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to become Sony Pictures Animation's highest grossing film of all time domestically. On March 15, 2019, the film grossed $576.2 million, surpassing The Smurfs ($563.7 million) to become the highest grossing Sony Pictures Animation film of all time worldwide.

United States and Canada
In the United States and Canada, Addie held early screenings at 1,000 theaters on February 16, 2019, and grossed $2.3 million, which is the highest advanced screening total of all time for a Sony film. The film was released alongside A Madea Family Funeral, and was initially projected to gross $55–60 million at 3,892 theaters in its opening weekend with rivals projecting a $70 million opening. However, after making $43.2 million on its first day (including $11.8 million from Thursday night previews) which is the biggest of all time for a Sony Pictures Animation film, estimates were raised to $95–110 million.

The film ended up grossing $123.4 million in its opening weekend, which is the biggest opening of all time for Sony Pictures Animation as well as the biggest animated March opening at the time. The film had a steep drop of 72% on its second Friday ($12.04 million), the steepest Friday-to-Friday drop for a SPA film. In its second weekend, the film dropped a huge 69.5% (steeper than The Emoji Movie ' s 51.1%) to $37.6 million and fell to second place behind newcomer Captain Marvel ($153.4 million). In its third weekend, the film dropped 45% and grossed $20.6 million while remaining in second place. The film grossed $10.5 million in its fourth weekend while dropping 49% and landing in third place. The film grossed $9.2 million in its fifth weekend while remaining in fourth and dropped to seventh in its sixth weekend grossing $4.8 million while crossing $300 million domestically. The film fell out of the top 10 by its seventh weekend. The film re-entered the top 10 in ninth place with a gross of $2.7 million by its ninth weekend and later grossed $2.3 million in its tenth weekend while placing at tenth. It once again fell out of the top ten in its eleventh weekend with a $901,973 weekend gross. The film ended its domestic run on June 13, 2019, after 105 days.

Internationally
In other territories, the film made $109.7 million internationally alongside its North American opening. In the United Kingdom, the film had preview screenings on its opening night on February 28, 2019, grossing £1.84 mi ($2.1 million) from 575 venues. It went on to gross $11.3 million from 1,250 screens in its opening weekend, finishing first at the box office. It made $5.5 million in its second weekend, finishing first at the box office. It made $2.3 million in its third weekend.

As of May 8, 2019, the biggest overseas markets are China ($112.2 million), the United Kingdom ($58.9 million), Japan ($32.5 million), Australia ($30.6 million), Germany ($28.7 million), and Russia ($24.6 million). The film made $31.6 million on its opening day in China and $63.2 million over the weekend.

Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Addie holds an approval rating of 72% based on 312 reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The site's consensus reads, "As a more welcoming standalone spin-off of the film that should not be named, Addie earns itself an unexpected ✔." Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 63 out of 100, based on 49 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale (up from the predecessor's "B").

Sequel and prequel
In April 2018, Geo stated that there were ideas for a planned Addie franchise if the film was a box office success. On March 7, 2019, it was announced that a sequel is in development with Geo returning to write and direct. Geo has also announced that a prequel film based on younger versions of Addie's parents is in production as well. On April 10, 2019, Sony Pictures Animation announced that the sequel is scheduled to be released on May 27, 2022, with Gabrielle reprising her role as Addie. On October 26, 2019, it was announced that the release date was pushed back to March 4, 2022. By November 1, the release date was pushed back again to July 15, 2022.

Television series
On February 28, 2019, it was confirmed that a television series based on Addie will be produced for Gingo. By October 2019, the series is announced as Addie: Heroes of the Galaxy and will premiere on Gingo worldwide in the spring of 2020, developed by Nelvana in partnership with Sony Pictures Animation. Sony Pictures Television will handle distribution in the United States, while Nelvana is set to distribute the series outside the United States.

Main
To see the main transcript of the film, click here.

Trailers
To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.