Bob Adams: Final Fate

Bob Adams: Final Fate (JPN: ボブ・アダムス：最終的な運命, literally Bob Adams: Final Destiny) is a 2006 animated film and a stand alone spinoff to A Penguin's Memories. Like with the English dub of the original film, Garrett Fredrickson was a director for the movie, alongside Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence director Mamoru Oshii, while Mitsuhisa Ishikawa of Production I.G. along with Jerry Beck, Chris Jenkins, and Douglas Wick produced the film. Marshall Efron, who voiced Bob Adams in the English dub of the original film, reprised his role for this movie, as did Lou Diamond Philips, while Timothy Dalton, Donal Logue, and Eric Idle voice new characters. The animation for the movie was provided by Production I.G. and Polygon Pictures while Spyglass Entertainment, Red Wagon Entertainment, and Fredrickson's own LIVE Entertainment co-financed the movie, and it was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures. It was the first animated film directly released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer since All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 and the first film directed by Garrett Fredrickson after his production company was renamed to LIVE Entertainment. In the film, Bob Adams is discharged from the hospital and starts going through a midlife crisis following when he learns why Mike attacked him the way he did. He eventually meets a pair of former con artists named Zachary Roland and Nicholas Franks, who were in a similar position as him, and he joins them on their mission to stop a madman named Phil C. Schemmer before he creates havoc across the United States.

Although being produced and released early in Japan, the film was geared towards the United States market rather than the Japanese one. Bob Adams: Final Fate was widely promoted by MGM and Sony, with tie in promotions made by Subway, 7-Eleven, Gap, among other companies. The film had it's premiere at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre on May 5th, 2006 before being released to theaters on May 10th, 2006 in Japan and June 14th, 2006 in the United States, where it grossed $212.3 Million on a $74 million budget, and it received favorable reviews in the United States.

Plot
COMING SOON

Voices

 * Marshall Efron as Bob Adams
 * Timothy Dalton as Mr. Zachary Roland.
 * Donal Logue as Nicholas Franks
 * Eric Idle as Phil C. Schemmer
 * Lou Diamond Philips as Jack. Philips was one of a few actors who reprised his role from the first film for this one.
 * Pat Hingle as The Librarian. Hingle voiced The Librarian in place of Burl Ives due to Ives' passing in 1993.
 * Sarah Michelle Gellar as Olivia
 * Ruby Marlowe as Kayla
 * Mark Hamill as Martin
 * Julia Roberts as Judy
 * Tony Hale as Horace
 * Rupert Farley as Benson
 * Tom Bosley as Dr. Moe
 * Emma Thompson as Caitlyn
 * Clancy Brown as The Judge
 * Wallace Shawn as The Reporter
 * Larry King as a Newscaster
 * Chris Sarandon as Mike (archival footage)
 * Debbie Reynolds as Jill (archival footage)

Additional Voices

 * Frank Welker
 * Kirk Thornton
 * Kevin Michael Richardson
 * James Cranna
 * Tom Kenny
 * Neil Ross
 * Scott Menville
 * Corrinne Orr
 * Jeff Bennett
 * Jaishon Fisher
 * Kath Soucie
 * Tress MacNielle
 * James Arnold Taylor
 * Doug Stone
 * Spike Spencer
 * Jess Harnell
 * Corey Burton
 * Steve Bulen
 * Robert Axelrod
 * Jimmy Hibbert
 * David Lander
 * Dee Bradley Baker
 * John Schwab
 * Rolf Saxon

Production
Fredrickson during the 1990s was interested in exploring a little more into Bob Adams' character, and was also interested in creating a story regarding his fate and also possibly even a redemption story. In the original film, Mike, due to his war flashbacks, defeated Bob Adams in a fight after he tried to keep Jill singing for money, and after Jill stopped Mike from beating him up, it ended with Bob Adams being knocked out cold and he was never seen afterwards, leaving his fate in the air. In 2002, Fredrickson pitched the film to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who greenlit the project in July of that year, and after searching for what happened to the company that made the original Penguin's Memories, he learned that the company that did the original animation for the film, KK C&D Asia, ceased operations and most of their animators moved to Production I.G., and Fredrickson managed to get them on board with the animation for the film. Due to the company being larger than KK C&D Asia was, the animation for the film was given much more polished and fluent animation than the original, but still carried much of the same aesthetics as the original.

There is, however, one key difference between the animation design of the original and this film. In the original movie, many of the background penguins mostly came in the same blue color as many of the major characters of the original film did, in this film, however, most of the penguins created for the film, especially the background penguins, come in all sorts of different colors, including blues, reds, greens, oranges, yellows, etc.

For the voices, Fredrickson managed to get in contact with some of the original voices for the film, including Marshall Efron, Bob Adams' English VA, Lou Diamond Philips also chose to reprise his role as Jack, and Clancy Brown and Frank Welker, who had a few roles in A Penguin's Memories, did also provide some of the character voices for more minor characters, while Chris Sarandon and Debbie Reynolds, who voiced Mike and Jill in the first movie, appeared through archival footage at the beginning of the movie.

Some of the new actors featured in the movie include Timothy Dalton, Donal Logue, Ruby Marlowe, Eric Idle, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Emma Thompson, among others. Timothy Dalton and Donal Logue were found via auditioning, as the two auditioned for Mr. Roland and Nicholas Franks, respectively. Eric Idle was offered to voice the film's villain, Phil C. Schemmer, in 2004, and accepted the offer due to his enjoyment of the original film and Garrett Fredrickson's other film This is Ourselves. This was the first Garret Frederickson film not to have a Carl Andy voice cameo due to him being busy with directing To Live and later his retirement from the Entertainment industry in 2008. Production on the film wrapped in April 2006.

Distribution
Unlike the first film, where it was fairly difficult to find distribution for the movie, it was easier for Fredrickson to get funding from MGM for distribution due to their United Artists label previously distributing A Penguin's Memories in the United States, however, the film was also co-distributed by Columbia Pictures, similar to a few other films MGM released that year like The Pink Panther and Casino Royale. The reason for this was because Sony briefly bought MGM with a consortium of other parties.

Release
Bob Adams: Final Fate had a "blue-carpet" premiere at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in the United States on May 5th, 2006. Many of the attendees included some of the film's actors along with actors who contributed to earlier Garrett Fredrickson works, including George Hearn, Ving Rhames, Jodi Benson, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci and Steve Blum. It later opened in theaters on May 10th, 2006 in Japan, and on June 14th, 2006 in the United States. Like with the original movie, the film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA, this time "For sequences of action violence/peril and thematic elements", as by 2006, the MPAA rating system became more strict, thus making more sense why it was given a PG-13 rating.

On July 14th, 2007, the film was broadcast on [adult swim] with a TV-14-LV rating. It also had broadcasts on Starz during the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Marketing
The teaser trailer for the film was released on March 18th, 2005 and was attached to the theatrical releases of The Ring Two, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, Beauty Shop, and Kung Fu Hustle. The first trailer was released on August 5th, 2005 and was attached to the theatrical releases of The Dukes of Hazzard, Four Brothers, The 40 Year Old Virgin, A Sound of Thunder, Venom, Lord of War, Corpse Bride, Roll Bounce, and A History of Violence. The second trailer was released on January 13th, 2006 and was attached to the theatrical releases of Last Holiday, Underwold: Evolution, The New World, When a Stranger Calls, The Pink Panther, Final Destination 3, and Date Movie. The final trailer was released on March 10th, 2006 and was attached to the theatrical releases of ''The Hills Have It, Failure to Launch, V for Vendetta, Inside Man, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Scary Movie 4. and Silent Hill''. The film's first TV spot premiered on April 17th, 2006 and was seen on channels such as ABC, CBS, NBC, The WB, Comedy Central, Fox, and Cartoon Network on the late night [adult swim] block.

MGM and Sony chose to put a large sum of money into the marketing deals for the film and Fredrickson was given control of merchandising. Subway sold eight Bob Adams: Final Fate toys and Dunkin Donuts sold themed penguin shaped donuts for one month in June 2006. There was also a tie-in deal with 7 Eleven, where they sold a limited edition Blue Penguin Slurpee that same month, which was a Blue Raspberry flavored Slurpee. Build A Bear also sold plush toys of the film's main character, Bob Adams, where patrons could "build" their own Bob and dress him up in all sorts of clothing. Gap Inc. also sold special clothes featuring the characters from the film for a limited time in 2006. For the film's Japanese release, a manga written and illustrated by Tatsuyoshi Kobayashi was released in July 2006, and was later licensed by Viz Media via a deal with MGM/Sony in the United States, being released in November 2006 under the title "Bob Adams: The Graphic Novel". Along with the release of the film, a tie-in video game was published by Ubisoft and MGM Interactive for all current video gaming systems. All versions of the video game are the same with minor graphical differences, with only the Nintendo DS version changing the overall format.

Box Office
Bob Adams: Final Fate grossed $212.3 million on it's budget of $74 million. It was far more successful than the original in terms of box office mainly because MGM & Sony had more time to do proper promotion for the movie, and was also a surprise success for a 2D animated movie, as most at the time didn't exceed studio expectations, mainly thanks to the advent of CGI animated films. The film's success prompted Fredrickson to stick with outsourcing his animation to Japanese companies from then on out rather than switching to doing CGI animation like most companies were doing.

Critical Response
Bob Adams: Final Fate received favorable reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 75% based on 181 reviews, the site's critical consensus reads "Bob Adams: Final Fate might not offer the strongest of storytelling or even much fidelty to it's predecessor, but it's remarkable visuals and heart will definately resonate with animation and anime fans of all kinds". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 67 indicating "favorable reviews".

Roger Ebert gave the movie a positive review of three stars saying in his review that "For a film that's set after a film that didn't need a follow up, Bob Adams: Final Fate is surprisingly great, although it's pretty clear it's more of a stand-alone feature rather than a sequel to A Penguin's Memories." Richard Roeper also gave it a positive review stating the film "Does a good job keeping itself tied to the world of A Penguin's Memories while also making itself stand out as it's own movie." The New York Times said that Bob Adams: Final Fate was "one of the most delightful films of 2006."

Home Media
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released Bob Adams: Final Fate on high definition Blu-Ray Disc, PSP UMD Video, and DVD in the United States on October 17th, 2006, making it the first animated film from Sony to be released on Blu-Ray. In Japan, the Japanese Blu-Ray Disc and DVD was released by Bandai Visual, this release carries both the Japanese dub and the English dub, similar with the US DVD, which contains the English version with a subtitled version of the Japanese dub. Sony's DVD contained a making of documentary on the film, an audio commentary, the film's trailers and TV spots, deleted scenes, storyboards and rough pencil tests of scenes, and a music video for the movie's closing song "You're Not Alone". This is one of few Sony/MGM collaborations Sony retains rights to.

The film also recieved a VHS release in the UK, but the VHS was only available for a very limited time at Tesco, and was the last film ever released on VHS in the UK.