Ready for another feature presentation featuring your favourite family on the big screen? Gads no, not The Simpsons, that was mostly bloody terrible!
With Seth MacFarlane hitting it big with his big screen directorial debut this year, Ted, the man behind the Family Guy series recently dropped a few hints as to when a feature length version of his cult show would hit the air, as well as to what kind of content would be present in it.
Speaking during a visit to UCLA that Slash Film picked up on, MacFarlane says that Family Guy hitting the big screen is “just a matter of when”. Well that narrows it down considerably.
MacFarlane has been wanting to bring his Quahog family onto the big screen for a while now, and with Ted being a box office success, he might just might be able to now. As MacFarlane said at UCLA;
We do know what the Family Guy movie will be. The Simpsons movie, I thought, was hilarious, but the one criticism I would have is that it’s a story they probably could’ve done on TV.There could’ve been an episode that had that plotline. That’s the challenge with animation. You pretty much can do any story you want, so what is the reason for the movie? We finally hit on the answer to that question, and it will be something that would be impossible to do on TV.
So what could a Family Guy film be like on the big screen then? Who knows, but if Peter Griffin decides to start another fight with the giant Chicken, it’ll probably result in reality being destroyed if MacFarlane stays true to his word.
So a Family Guy movie is incoming, But MacFarlane is going to need to find some time, or axe one of his other shows that stars a similar family setup, in order to get it made;
It’s hard to do that while you have the series going on at the same time. I think that’s why it took The Simpsons 20 seasons to figure out how to do it.
Sounds freakin’ sweet to me.
Last Updated: December 3, 2012
James Francis
December 3, 2012 at 12:27
But they already made one movie and, frankly, it was the prefect format for the show. The problem with The Simpsons was that you can’t take one episode and make it 90 minutes long – so the writing had to change substantially. Given how much Family Guy relies on the quick-punch humor and short stories it produces, I don;t know if a feature-length PROPER movie will be any better than what we saw from the Springfield family…
Lourens Corleone
December 3, 2012 at 12:48
Have you not seen the Star Wars Family Guy films?
James Francis
December 4, 2012 at 11:58
Doesn’t count, since those were parodies based off the framework of other films. Also, quite a few Family Guy fans – me included – regard those as the lowest point in Family Guy writing. Even including the bad jokes from the previous season.
Darryn_Bonthuys
December 3, 2012 at 13:45
Those were more direct to DVD projects, than feature length films. I think what MacFarlane is wanting to do, is get the same budget that other animated films are made on, for his project.More money, more gags and all that, but with higher production standards.
James Francis
December 4, 2012 at 12:01
True, but that’s not my point. The Simpsons movie shows that these animated shows struggle to compliment the 90-minute format. The Family Guy movie used an approach that worked well. If they shrug that off and attempt an epic in the vein of Simpsons, it could also fail. The characters and plots do not generate the depth for it – not with a show that comfortably told an epic in 22 minutes (such as virtually every show in which Brian and Stewie go on a road trip)
The exception was the Aqua Teen film, which stuck to its guns. But consequently only really hardcore fans could sit through it and have fun.
Parker
December 3, 2012 at 12:34
Um, the Simpsons movie was great.
Darryn_Bonthuys
December 3, 2012 at 13:45
Nah, I hated it. One or two decent jokes, all watered down by the same old tired story of Marge and Homer having a marriage on the rocks.