# Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is a 2017 American animated superhero comedy film based on Dav Pilkey's children's novel series, titled Captain Underpants, produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film is directed by David Soren from a screenplay by Nicholas Stoller, and stars the voices of Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, Nick Kroll, Thomas Middleditch, Jordan Peele, and Kristen Schaal, the film was released during the 20th anniversary of the Captain Underpants series. In the film, two fourth-grade pranksters, named George and Harold, hypnotize their humorless principal, named Mr. Krupp, into thinking he is a superhero, named Captain Underpants. The film loosely adapts the first, the second, the fourth, and the eleventh Captain Underpants books.
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie first premiered at the Regency Village Theatre, in Los Angeles, California, in the United States, on May 21, 2017, and was first released theatrically in theaters, in the United States, on June 2, 2017, in both 2-D and 3-D formats. The film received positive reviews, with critics praising the animation, humor, faithfulness, references to its source material, and voice acting. It grossed $125 million worldwide against a budget for $38 million, the lowest budget for a film from DreamWorks Animation, until 2021, with Spirit Untamed, which had a budget for $30 million. It was the final DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by 20th Century Fox, following the acquisition of DreamWorks Animation by both Comcast and NBCUniversal in 2016 and the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney in 2017.
A television series that’s based on (and is a sequel to) the film, titled The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants, premiered on Netflix on July 13, 2018, while a spin-off film, titled Dog Man, was released by Universal Pictures on January 31, 2025.

## Plot

In Piqua, Ohio, two best friends and next-door neighbors George Beard and Harold Hutchins create comic books, their latest creation being a superhero named Captain Underpants. They are fourth-graders at the un-fun, depressing Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, where their excessive pranks to cheer up their fellow students put them at odds with their cruel principal Benjamin Krupp. One day (on what's supposed to be a no-school Saturday), they tamper with their classmate Melvin Sneedly's invention, the Turbo Toilet 2000, to lift the other students' spirits in which Mr. Krupp made them come to school that day, but Mr. Krupp uses one of Melvin's other inventions to record the boys enacting the prank. He prepares to put George and Harold in separate classes in hopes of ending their friendship.
The following Monday, George hypnotizes Mr. Krupp using a 3-D Hypno-Ring from a cereal box before Mr. Krupp can sign the papers to separate George and Harold. They command Mr. Krupp to become Captain Underpants, leading him to cause trouble around town in which the boys had to come and get him before the police can arrest him. After taking him to their treehouse, the boys discover that they can turn Captain Underpants back into Mr. Krupp by splashing water on him and back into Captain Underpants by snapping their fingers. The next day, to keep Mr. Krupp from separating them, they convince Captain Underpants that Mr. Krupp is his secret identity. His change in personality attracts the attention of the school's shy lunch lady Edith.
Meanwhile, Professor Pee-Pee Diarrheastein Poopypants, Esq. is hired as the school's new science teacher, though George and Harold are suspicious of his violent behavior. Poopypants, who invented a Nobel Prize-winning "sizerator", is sick of never being taken seriously due to his name, and seeks to eliminate all laughter. With Captain Underpants as principal, the school becomes a livelier place (reinstating the art room and bringing in a carnival), but a rainstorm turns Captain Underpants back into Mr. Krupp, who officially places George and Harold in separate classes.
Poopypants and Melvin grow the Turbo Toilet 2000, power it with Edith's toxic leftovers, and use it to attack the school. Poopypants uses Melvin's brain, which lacks the part that causes laughter, to power a ray that turns the students into dull, humorless zombies. Captain Underpants tries to stop them but, having no superpowers, is thrown into the toxic waste. George and Harold are captured, but the power of a joke that made them friends in kindergarten overloads the Turbo Toilet 2000, returning the kids to normal and trapping Melvin in giant toilet paper. The toxic leftovers give Captain Underpants real superpowers and, with George and Harold's help, he defeats and shrinks Poopypants, who escapes on a bee.
Unable to control Captain Underpants forever, George and Harold destroy the Hypno-Ring to permanently change him back into Mr. Krupp, but swear to remain friends. However, after realizing that Mr. Krupp would be nicer if he had friends, they set him and Edith up on a date, causing Krupp to have a change of heart and return the comics he confiscated from George and Harold. Meanwhile, the toxic waste from the Turbo Toilet 2000 transforms the toilets at a scrapyard into an army of Talking Toilets, which attack the restaurant where Mr. Krupp and Edith are dining. After unwittingly snapping his fingers, Mr. Krupp is once again transformed into Captain Underpants, to Edith's surprise and admiration, and he flies away with George and Harold to face their next adventure together.

## Voice cast

* Kevin Hart as George Beard, a fourth-grade student who is best friends with Harold. Together, they make comic books, with George writing stories and Harold illustrating them. He is typically calmer in tough situations.
* Ed Helms as Mister Benjamin Krupp / Captain Underpants, the grumpy and mean principal of Jerome Horwitz Elementary School. George and Harold hypnotize him into becoming Captain Underpants, a superhero they created, to stop him from putting them in separate classes.
* Nick Kroll as Professor Pee-Pee Diarrheastein Poopypants Esquire, a ruthless and humorless German-accented mad scientist from New Swissland and the film's antagonist. He plots to take over the world to eliminate all laughter after years of being constantly disparaged for his name.
* Thomas Middleditch as Harold Hutchins, a fourth-grade student who is best friends with George. He illustrates books while George writes stories. He is usually cautious and worrisome in tough situations. Harold is friendly and has a fondness for dolphins.
* Jordan Peele as Melvin Sneedly, George and Harold's nerdy enemy. He is a child prodigy who becomes Professor Poopypants' sidekick due to lacking a sense of humor.
* Kristen Schaal as Edith, the shy school lunch lady and the love interest of Mr. Krupp. She is only created for the film, and is partially based on Mrs. Edith Anthrope from the book series, who is featured as a separate character.

## Production

DreamWorks Pictures and DreamWorks Animation's first interest in the film rights to the Captain Underpants series dates back to when the first installment was published in 1997, but creator Dav Pilkey did not want to sell them. Early pitches for an adaptation included video games, animated and live-action films, an animated series, and a live-action series. Pilkey expressed interest in having Chris Farley in the role. To persuade him, DreamWorks Pictures and DreamWorks Animation gave Pilkey a tour around the studio with everyone wearing underpants over their trousers, which made him laugh. In October 2011, his representatives indicated Pilkey was ready, and DreamWorks Animation won the rights in an auction. In October 2013, Rob Letterman was announced as director and Nicholas Stoller as scriptwriter. The two had previously worked together on the film Gulliver's Travels. In January 2014, the cast was announced; Ed Helms as Captain Underpants / Mr. Krupp, Kevin Hart as George Beard, Thomas Middleditch as Harold Hutchins, Nick Kroll as the "insidious villain" Professor Poopypants, and Jordan Peele as George and Harold's "nerdy nemesis" Melvin Sneedly.
In June 2014, DreamWorks Animation announced a January 2017 release date. Following DreamWorks Animation's reorganization in early 2015, the studio announced that the film would be produced outside of the studio's pipeline at a significantly lower cost. It was instead animated at Mikros Image in Montreal, Canada, and at Technicolor Animation Productions in France, and therefore looks identical to Pilkey's original drawing style, as well as differently than many of the DreamWorks Pictures and DreamWorks Animation films. A month later, Letterman left the project but came back as an executive producer, and David Soren, the director of Turbo, entered talks to direct the film.
During production, Pilkey got to work closely with Soren. He was relieved that Soren was directing since he was a fan of Turbo. In an interview with Los Angeles Times, Pilkey said: "Once I met David, it was like a huge load fell off my back; I was like, 'I don't even have to think about this anymore. Just send me a couple of tickets to the premiere.'" Commenting back, Soren said, "In a way, the controversy over the books ended up being liberating for the film. Normally on an animated movie, you're trying to appeal to every possible demographic, and often that results in your content being watered down a little bit. Obviously, we hope we get as wide of an audience as possible. But it's likely that if people have issues with the books they may have issues with the movie too, and we didn't feel like we needed to waste a lot of time trying to rope them in. It allowed us to make the purest version of the movie." Soren also said that he took inspiration from John Hughes films. In an interview with MovieFreak, he mentioned,
   "We actually looked at a lot of John Hughes movies for inspiration, like Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Weird Science. John Hughes had this great knack for making comedies like this. Both of those movies have great friendships at the center of them. He seemed to be able to tap into the voice of a generation. They're very funny, all of his movies, but they are also poignant and they actually have meaningful things to say, which I think is why they have stood the test of time. So there's timelessness to his work that we were attempting to go for with this."
While it is a 2017 American 3-D computer-animated film, the film includes scenes that are celluloid-animation, flash-animation, a short cutout-animation segment, and a sock-puppet sequence created by Screen Novelties.

## Music
### Soundtrack

"Weird Al" Yankovic wrote and performed the theme song for the film, which was featured in a lyric video. Andy Grammer wrote another original song for the film, titled "A Friend Like You". The film also features music from Adam Lambert, Cold War Kids member Nathan Willett, and Lil Yachty. An 11-track soundtrack album was released digitally on June 2, 2017, by Virgin Records and Deep Well Records.

#### Track listing

* ↑ featuring audio footage by Ed Helms
* ↑ Samples the Yello song of the same name

### Score

The music score was scored by Theodore Shapiro. A soundtrack for the score of the film was released on June 9. It features 24 pieces of music, and an exclusive digital booklet on iTunes. Three of the scores are also available on the soundtrack (those being "Comic Book Opening", "Saving the Day", and "The Prank for Good").

## Release
### Theatrical

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie was previously scheduled to be released on March 10, 2017, but in September 2015, The Boss Baby took over its date. The film was then moved to June 2, 2017. Other territories such as Europe and Asia received the film between July and October 2017. The film first premiered at the Regency Village Theatre, in Los Angeles, California, in the United States, on May 21, 2017. The film was chosen along with the 2017 Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation film, titled The Emoji Movie, to inaugurate the removal of Saudi Arabia's cinema ban through a double feature screening on January 13, 2018, organized by Cinema 70; they were the first two movies to be given an official public screening in the country in 35 years.

### Home media

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie was first released digitally, on digital download, in the United States, on August 29, 2017, and was first released digitally, on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, in the United States, on September 12, 2017. From January 10, 2018, to July 10, 2019, the film was available on Netflix, the film returned to the streaming platform after 4 years on July 10, 2023.

## Reception
### Box office

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie grossed $73.9 million in the United States and Canada and $51.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $125.5 million, against a production budget of $38 million.
In North America, the film was released alongside Wonder Woman, and was projected to gross around $20 million from 3,434 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $8 million on its first day and $23.9 million in its opening weekend, finishing second at the box office, behind Wonder Woman ($103.3 million). The film grossed $12.2 million in its second weekend, $7.2 million in its third and $4.3 million in its fourth.

### Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 87% based on 136 reviews and an average rating of 7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "With a tidy plot, clean animation, and humor that fits its source material snugly, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is entertainment that won't drive a wedge between family members." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 70 out of 100 based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars. Although Seitz pointed out that the film is hampered by "a rushed, jumbled quality" and has "tiresome" features that he says are common to DreamWorks, such as "frenetic action scenes ... and the use of workhorse pop songs", he emphasized that "[t]hey've approached this compendium of elemental slapstick and unabashed childishness with the reverence that the Coen brothers brought to No Country for Old Men." He further added that the inclusion of the flipbook interludes are the film's best parts, especially in having the pages accidentally be torn similar to the real books, stating that "[i]t's not often that a movie puts a spotlight on a mundane ritual in your own life that you never realized was profound and says, 'You probably forgot about this, but I want you to remember it and savor it because it meant something.'"

## Accolades

| Award | Category | Recipient(s) | Result |
| Annie Award | Best Animated Feature | Mireille Soria and Mark Swift | Nominated |
| Annie Award | Music in an Animated Feature Production | Theodore Shapiro | Nominated |
| Annie Award | Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production | Nick Kroll | Nominated |
| Detroit Film Critics Society | Best Animated Film | Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie | Nominated |
| Empire Awards | Best Animated Film | Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie | Nominated |
| Golden Tomato Awards 2017 | Best Animated Film | Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie | 5th Place |
| Hollywood Music in Media Awards 2017 | Best Original Song - Animated Film | "Captain Underpants Theme Song" for "Weird Al" Yankovic | Nominated |
| Hollywood Music in Media Awards 2017 | Best Original Score - Animated Film | Theodore Shapiro | Nominated |
| International Film Music Critics Association | Best Original Score - Animated Film | Theodore Shapiro | Won |
| IGN Awards | Best Animated Movie | Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie | Nominated |
| Kids' Choice Awards | Favorite Animated Film | Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie | Nominated |
| Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society | Best Animated Film | Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie | Nominated |
| St. Louis Film Critics Association | Best Animated Feature | David Soren | Nominated |
| 16th Visual Effects Society Awards | Outstanding Visual Effects in an Animated Feature | David Soren, Mark Swift, Mireille Soria, David Dulac | Nominated |

## Expanded franchise
### Sequel television series

On December 12, 2017, Netflix and DreamWorks Animation Television announced that there would be an animated series based on the film, entitled The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants. It premiered on the streaming service on July 13, 2018, and served as a standalone sequel to the film. It is executive-produced by Peter Hastings.

### Spin-off film

On December 9, 2020, DreamWorks Animation announced that a feature film adaptation of Dog Man—another one of George and Harold's comic creations in-universe—was in the works by director Peter Hastings, the showrunner for The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants. The film was released on January 31, 2025.