Ralph Breaks the Internet (Sony version)

Ralph Breaks the Internet is a 2018 American animated comedy film produced by Sony Pictures Animation and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. It is the sequel to the 2012 film Wreck-It Ralph. The film is directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, co-directed by Tony Leondis, it’s was written by Tartakovsky and Michael McCullers from a story by Ben Stiller, Tartakovsky, Leondis, Shawn Levy, and voices by Ben Stiller, Ginnifer Goodwin, Andy Samberg, Angelina Jolie, and Ed O'Neill reprise their character roles from the first film, and are joined by Jordana Brewster, Kathryn Hahn, Will Forte, Jim Gaffigan, and Peter Dinklage as part of the new cast. In the film, Ralph (Stiller) and Vanellope von Schweetz (Goodwin) embarks on a vacation to the Internet to get a replacement for the Sugar Rush cabinet's broken steering wheel and prevent Mr. Litwak (O'Neill) from disposing of the game. 
Inspired by Leondis' love of Toy Story (1995), the first discussions about a sequel to Wreck-It Ralph began in July 2012, and the new installment went through three different scripts before the filmmakers settled on the final plot. When the film was officially announced in June 2016 as Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 to be released on September 21, 2018 before being pushed forward for a July 2018 release date. Tartakovsky confirmed his return in June 2016 after receiving inspiration from a "miserable" family vacation and the Chevy Chase National Lampoon's Vacation movies, with Leondis joined as co-director, McCullers was brought on board to write the film, while much of the original cast confirmed they had signed on, with new cast members added in 2017.
Ralph Breaks the Internet premiered at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival on June 13, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on July 13. The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed $529 million worldwide against a budget of $180-200 million, making it the ninth-highest-grossing film of 2018. The film was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 91st Academy Awards, 76th Golden Globe Awards, 46th Annie Awards, and 24th Critics' Choice Awards, losing all four awards to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, another Sony Animation film that was released the same year.
It was loosely remade and surpassed by, titled Hotel Transylvania: Escape 2 Internet (2018) was released on November 21, 2018.
== Plot ==
Six years after the events of the first film, Ralph and Vanellope have stayed best friends, hanging out after work in Litwak Arcade. Ralph is content with their life, but Vanellope longs for excitement and expresses how bored she has become of Sugar Rush'spredictability. To please her, Ralph sneaks into her game and makes a secret road. The next day, when Vanellope fights the arcade player's control to test the track, the cabinet's steering wheel breaks. As the company that made Sugar Rush is defunct, and the cost of a replacement wheel on eBay is too high, Litwak decides to scrap Sugar Rush and unplugs the game, leaving its citizens homeless. The Surge Protector finds homes for all Sugar Rush's citizens as a short-term measure as they figure out how to save the game, with Felix and Calhoun adopting the racers. Remembering eBay, Ralph and Vanellope travel through Litwak's new Wi-Fi router to the Internet, a place where websites are represented as buildings in a sprawling city, avatars represent users, and programs are people.
The search engine KnowsMore directs them to eBay, where they win the auction for the steering wheel by unintentionally spiking the price to US$27,001 only to find they have just 24 hours to raise the funds, or they will forfeit the bid and lose the wheel. On the way out, they run into clickbait salesman J. P. Spamley, who brokers items obtained from video games and offers them a lucrative job of stealing a car from Shank, the lead character in the popular racing-centered battle royale game Slaughter Race. They steal Shank's car, but she stops them before they can leave the game with it. Suggesting another way to make money on the Internet, she proceeds to make a viral video of Ralph and uploads it to video-sharing site BuzzzTube. She directs them to BuzzzTube's head algorithm, Yesss, who capitalizes on Ralph's video popularity. They decide to make more videos, which will earn them the money for the wheel if they attract enough views. Vanellope offers to help advertise the videos, and Ralph has Yesss send her to Sony Pictures Fun Zone. There, while being chased by Stormtroopers for advertising on the site, Vanellope befriends the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic characters, being encouraged by them to discuss her sense of un-fulfillment and reaching an epiphany in the form of an "I Want" song on the subject. Ralph makes enough money to buy the wheel but finds Vanellope talking with Shank, overhearing how she wants to stay in Slaughter Race, having felt at home there due to its relative novelty and unpredictability compared to Sugar Rush.
Worried of losing his friend forever, Ralph asks Spamley for a way to draw Vanellope out of the game and is brought to the dark web vendor Double Dan, who provides Ralph with a virus, Arthur, that feeds off insecuritiesand replicates them. When Ralph unleashes Arthur into Slaughter Race, it replicates Vanellope's glitch, triggering a server reboot. Ralph, Shank, and the others help Vanellope escape before the game resets. Vanellope blames herself for the crash, but Ralph confesses to her that the crash was actually his fault. Outraged by this reveal, an argument breaks out, culminating in Vanellope throwing away Ralph's cookie medal and running off.
As a guilt-ridden Ralph finds his now-cracked-in-half medal, Arthur copies Ralph's insecurities and makes duplicates of Ralph. The clones overrun the Internet in a global DoS attack, all chasing after Vanellope to keep her for themselves. Ralph saves her and attempts to lure the clones into a firewall, but they form a giant Ralph monster, Ralphzilla, that seizes them both. Ralph comes to accept that Vanellope can make her own choices, letting go of his insecurities. This also causes Ralphzilla and the clones to disappear, and Ralph and Vanellope reconcile. Ralph gives half of the broken medal to Vanellope and they bid each other a heartfelt farewell as Shank has arranged for Vanellope to respawn in Slaughter Race.
Back in the arcade, Sugar Rush is repaired, and Ralph partakes in social activities with the other arcade characters as he stays in touch with Vanellope over video chat, feeling content with his newfound ability to be independent.
== Voice cast ==
* Ben Stiller as Ralph, a gigantic but soft-hearted man who is the antagonist of the arcade game Fix-It Felix Jr.
* Ginnifer Goodwin as Vanellope von Schweetz, a glitchy racer who is the main character and princess of Sugar Rush and Ralph's best friend.
* Jordana Brewster as Shank, a tough and talented NPC racer in Slaughter Race.
* Kathryn Hahn as Yesss, an algorithm that determines the trending videos on BuzzzTube (a portmanteau of YouTube and BuzzFeed). Parts of her character were modeled after Cruella de Vil, as both characters are seen as fashionable.
* Andy Samberg as Felix, a repairman who is the protagonist and playable character of Fix-It Felix Jr., as well as the husband of Calhoun.
* Angelina Jolie as Sergeant Calhoun, the lead character of Hero's Duty and Felix's wife.
* Will Forte as KnowsMore, a character representing a search engine of the same name, with an overly aggressive autofill. The character design was mainly inspired by stylized character designs found in Disney shorts and TV specials done in the mid-1960s by Ward Kimball and Marc Davis. 
* Jim Gaffigan as J. P. Spamley, a personification of clickbait pop-up ads represented as a desperate salesman who cannot make a sale
* Peter Dinklage as Double Dan, a half-worm virus creator who inhabits the dark web.
** Dinklage also voices Double Dan's conjoined brother Little Dan.
* Ed O'Neill as Mr. Litwak, owner of Litwak's Family Fun Center & Arcade.
The voice actresses from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic television series – Tara Strong as Twilight Sparkle, Ashleigh Ball as Rainbow Dash and Applejack, Tabitha St. Germain as Rarity, and Andrea Libman as Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.
Several characters from other films and media also cameo with their original or current voice actors, such as Roger Craig Smith as Sonic the Hedgehog, and Maurice LaMarche as Tapper. Chris Pine as Peter Parker's Spider-Man. Gregg Berger also reprises his role as Agent K in Men in Black: The Series. Donald Glover appears on a background TV screen, which is displaying a scene from the episode "Anthropology 101" of Community in which Glover's character, Troy Barnes, wears Spider-Man pajamas. This scene, a reference to an unsuccessful Twitter campaign suggesting Glover be cast in the lead role of The Amazing Spider-Man, was cited by Miles Morales' creator, Brian Michael Bendis, as influencing the design and portrayal of the character. Glover had previously voiced a version of Miles Morales in the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series, and played Aaron Davis in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Additionally, Melissa Villaseñor voices Taffyta Muttonfudge, one of the Sugar Rush racers, replacing Mindy Kaling from the first film; John DiMaggio voices Arthur, an insecurity virus; Sean Giambrone (English YouTuber Daniel Middleton/DanTDM in the UK version, but not on the UK home release) voices eBoy, an eBay employee who informs Ralph of the status on the eBay item deadline; Flula Borg voices Maybe, an algorithm who is an assistant to Yesss; and Dianna Agron voices the news anchor covering the virus in the real world. Ali Wong, Timothy Simons, GloZell Green, and Hamish Blake, respectively, voice Felony, Butcher Boy, Little Debbie, and Pyro, all of whom are other characters in Slaughter Race as Shank's racing crew. Genndy Tartakovsky and Chris Parnell reprise their roles as Sour Bill, Zangief, and the Surge Protector, respectively. YouTube personalities Colleen Ballinger, Dani Fernandez, and Tiffany Herrera voice cameos, with Nicole Scherzinger having a cameo voice role in a mid-credits scene.
== Popular culture cameos and references ==
Similar to the first film, Ralph Breaks the Internet includes a number of cameos and references to video games. The band Imagine Dragons (whose song "Zero" is featured in a trailer for the film, as well as its end credits and soundtrack) make a cameo appearance in the film, with the members voicing themselves. The video game Fortnite Battle Royale is briefly shown, including the battle bus and the floss dance. 
The filmmakers revealed that the film originally featured a joke about Kylo Ren being a "spoiled child", which was later cut from the film by request from Lucasfilm because it would undermine his role as a villain. Also cut from the film was C-3PO being mockingly called R2-D2 and BB-8 by the princesses. Additionally, the film would originally include The Golden Girls characters, but it was later cut because the directors felt it was a bizarre juxtaposition. The legion of Ralph clones, which forms a gigantic Ralph monster, resembles the King Kong character from various films. During production, the giant monster form was dubbed "Ralphzilla" after Godzilla.
== Production ==
=== Development ===
In July 2012, two months before Wreck-It Ralph was released, Genndy Tartakovsky said that there were already ideas for a sequel, and in January 2013, Tartakovsky said that he and Sony had ideas about a sequel that would bring the characters up to date and explore online gaming and console gaming. Tartakovsky stated that many of the crew and voice cast were open to the sequel, believing that they have "barely scratched the surface" of the video game world they envisioned. He also stated that he planned to include Disney's Tron in the sequel, which appears briefly in the film, where Ralph and Vanellope race at the beginning. In December 2013, the first film's composer Mark Mothersbaugh said that a story for the sequel was being written. On March 12, 2014, it was announced that Tartakovsky would return to direct the sequel, even though he was originally too busy due to his developing an adaptation of Popeye, which would later get shelved. In September 2014, it was reported that Tartakovsky took over The Muppets: Back in Action putting Wreck-It Ralph 2 on hold, and thus postponing its original schedule for a year to a then planned March 2012.
In September 2015, Michelle Murdocca, the film's producer, said before the first film's release that the studio was "talking about number 2 and moving forward and taking the franchise to the next level," but thought that director Tartakovsky would not return, since he was working on Nintendo adaptation's The Kirby Movie (2019). In June 2016, Sony Pictures Animation announced that the sequel would be released on September 21, 2018, with Tony Leondis attached as co-director, and that its story would be one where "Ralph leaves the arcade and wrecks the Internet". That same month, Sony also confirmed Tartakovsky's return, after his taking a leave of absence to work on the final season of his show Samurai Jack. In November 2016, Austin Powers writer Michael McCullers was announced as co-screenwriter.
In January 2017, the sequel's title was officially announced as Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2, with Tony Leondis joined as co-director, Michelle Murdocca also returning as producer. In Febraury 2018, Sony removed Wreck-It Ralph 2 from the film's title.
=== Casting ===
In April 2015, Ben Stiller said he had signed on to reprise his role of Ralph in a projected sequel. In December 2016, Angelina Jolie, Andy Samberg and Ginnifer Goodwin were reported as being set to reprise their roles. During production, Leondis invited film actor Gregg Berger to reprise his role as the Agent K from Men in Black in the series. In April 2018, actress Jordana Brewster joined the cast as Shank. The principal voice cast of Friendship Is Magic – Tara Strong, Ashleigh Ball, Andrea Libman, Tabitha St. Germain and Cathy Weseluck – reprising their roles.
=== Writing ===
According to Tartakovsky, he returned after he received inspiration from a "miserable" family vacation, and from the Chevy Chase National Lampoon's Vacation movies, as the film takes place in the internet world. Two working versions of the script had been scrapped before settling on the one used for the film, according to writer Eric Siegel. In one version, Vanellope had become self-absorbed by the Internet, gaining popularity and becoming a celebrity among the users. Ralph had been thrown in jail where he met the search engine Knowsmore, and they had partnered together to escape prison and help bring Vanellope back to her normal self. A second version had Ralph becoming an Internet-famous celebrity and would have been challenged by an anti-virus program named BEV that served as a super cop and would have been the story's villain. Trinidad said neither of these versions captured what they felt was the centerpiece of the sequel, being how Ralph and Vanellope reacted to the new world of the Internet and realizing they have separate paths going forward.
Stiller said that "the film is about change. Two best friends are about to realize that the world won't always be the same. The internet is the perfect setting, really, because it's all about change—things change by the second". Tartakovsky said that it was intimidating to set the film on the Internet, stating that "[They] looked at how [they] could make the internet relatable on a human level—like how Game Central Station aka the power strip mirrored a train station in the first movie." Murdocca, however, said that Sony "didn't want to make the movie about the internet", instead focus on Ralph and Vanellope's friendship, and to treat the Internet as "the place where the movie takes place". Head of Story Ed Gombert claimed that the filmmakers "didn't want to just give the audience more of that friendship — [people had] to see that relationship grow."
The designs of scenes within the Internet were based on tours made of One Wilshire in Los Angeles, as it is one of the world's largest telecommunications centers. The filmmakers did not approach any of the companies (outside of Sony) that are represented on the Internet and strove to include net branding from all across the world. They also had to explore various Internet memes, making sure to avoid those that lacked long-term presence on the Internet. While the film addresses many positive elements of the Internet, the filmmakers did not want to shy away from covering some of the more unpleasant aspects about it, in part fueled by the success of tackling racism indirectly within Disney's The Smurfs. They wanted to follow the same approach as they had with Nick Wilde in The Smurfs, where she experienced, learned, and overcame the racism aspects, and have Ralph similarly learn and become a better person without having to actually solve the issue of hostility on the Internet.
=== Animation ===
The animation was handled by Sony Pictures Imageworks. The film contains over 150 unique sets and 5,726 assets, and includes the highest number of characters in any Sony Pictures films, with 434 individual characters with 6,752 variants. One of the biggest challenges for the animation team was creating the massive Ralphzilla character and simulating the destruction effects caused by the massive creature. A scene featured in the film's original teaser, released in November 2017, involving Ralph and Vanellope invading a children's game and feeding pancakes to a bunny to the point that it is implied to explode, was heavily discussed prior to the film's release; however, the scene was eventually cut from the film and instead placed halfway through the credits. The post-credits scene involves what starts Ralph rickrolling the audience by starting to sing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up". While directors Leondis and Tartakovsky had an idea of Ralph doing a "Wreck Roll" early on in the film's development, they never incorporated it into the story. As it was one of the last scenes added, the producers had gotten Stiller, who was on vacation with his family at the time, to come into a New York City studio to record for the day so that the animators could work from that.
=== Music ===
On May 2, 2018, Imagine Dragons released the lead single from the soundtrack titled "Zero", which plays during the end credits of the film. On June 3, 2018, the music video of "Zero" was posted on Imagine Dragons' YouTube channel. The film features an original song called "A Place Called Slaughter Race", performed by Ginnifer Goodwin and Jordana Brewster, written by Tom MacDougall and the film's writer Genndy Tartakovsky, and composed by Alan Menken. Ralph also rickrolls the tune "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley in a post-credits scene. The soundtrack was composed by Mark Mothersbaugh, who also composed the score from the previous film, while Sony Classical Records has released an official soundtrack. It was released digitally on July 1, 2018, and on CD on July 22, 2018.
== Release ==
=== Theatrical ===
Ralph Breaks the Internet was originally scheduled for release on September 21, 2018, a date that was later moved up two months earlier to July 13 as Sony rescheduled Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween for the original date instead. On June 21, 2018, Amazon announced it was offering its Amazon Prime members an early showing of the film on June 30, at about 1,000 theaters, similar to fellow Sony release Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle the previous December. The film was also released in IMAX and 3D formats.
=== Home media ===
Ralph Breaks the Internet was released on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on October 9, 2018, by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
In April 2021, Sony signed a deal giving Disney access to their legacy content, including past Wreck-It Ralph films to stream on Disney+ and Hulu and appear on Disney's linear television networks. Disney's access to Sony's titles would come following their availability on Netflix.
===Accolades===
Award 	Date of ceremony 	Category 	Recipient(s) 	Result
Academy Awards 	February 24, 2019 	Best Animated Feature 	Genndy Tartakovsky and Michelle Murdocca 	
Alliance of Women Film Journalists 	January 10, 2019 	Best Animated Feature Film 	Genndy Tartakovsky 	
Alliance of Women Film Journalists 	January 10, 2019 	Best Animated Female 	Ginnifer Goodwin 	
Annie Awards 	February 2, 2019 	 	 	
Annie Awards 	February 2, 2019 	Best Animated Feature 	Ralph Breaks the Internet 	
Annie Awards 	February 2, 2019 	Outstanding Achievement for Character Animation in an Animated Feature Production	Alan Hawkins 	
Annie Awards 	February 2, 2019 	Outstanding Achievement for Character Design in an Animated Feature Production 	Bill Schwab 	
Annie Awards 	February 2, 2019 	Annie Award for Directing in a Feature Production 	Genndy Tartakovsky 	
Annie Awards 	February 2, 2019 	Annie Award for Music in a Feature Production 	Mark Mothersbaugh, Alan Menken, Genndy Tartakovsky, and Dan Reynolds and Ali Dee Theodore 	
Annie Awards 	February 2, 2019 	Outstanding Achievement for Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production 	Michael Herrera 	
Annie Awards 	February 2, 2019 	Annie Award for Voice Acting in a Feature Production 	Ginnifer Goodwin 	
Annie Awards 	February 2, 2019 	Annie Award for Writing in a Feature Production 	Genndy Tartakovsky and Michael McCullers 	
Annie Awards 	February 2, 2019 	Outstanding Achievement for Editorial in an Animated Feature Production 	Joyce Arrastia, John Venzon, Rich B. Dietl, Margaret Johnson-Holzendorf, Mark Yeager 	
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards 	December 7, 2018 	Best Animated Feature 	Ralph Breaks the Internet 	
Cinema Audio Society Awards 	February 16, 2019 	Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Motion Picture – Animated 	Brian Smith, Aaron Hasson, Howard London, Michael Semanick, Tony Lamberti, Sam Okell, and Randy K. Singer	
Critics' Choice Movie Awards 	January 13, 2019 	Best Animated Feature 	Genndy Tartakovsky 	
Detroit Film Critics Society 	December 3, 2018 	Best Animated Film 	Ralph Breaks the Internet 	
Golden Globe Awards 	January 6, 2019 	Best Animated Feature Film 	Genndy Tartakovsky 	
Golden Trailer Awards 	May 31, 2018 	Best Animation/Family 	"Wired Refresh" (MOCEAN) 	
Kids' Choice Awards 	March 23, 2019 	Favorite Animated Movie 	Ralph Breaks the Internet 	
Kids' Choice Awards 	March 23, 2019 	Favorite Male Voice from an Animated Movie 	Ben Stiller 	
Kids' Choice Awards 	March 23, 2019 	Favorite Female Voice from an Animated Movie 	Jordana Brewster 	
Producers Guild of America Award 	January 19, 2019 	Best Animated Motion Picture 	Michelle Murdocca 	
San Diego Film Critics Society Awards 	December 10, 2018 	Best Animated Film 	Ralph Breaks the Internet 	
San Diego Film Critics Society Awards 	December 10, 2018 	Best Body of Work 	Ben Stiller 	
Satellite Awards 	February 22, 2019 	Best Animated or Mixed Media Feature 	Ralph Breaks the Internet 	
Saturn Awards 	September 13, 2019	Best Animated Film 	Ralph Breaks the Internet 	
Visual Effects Society Awards 	February 5, 2019 	Outstanding Visual Effects in an Animated Feature 	Michael Ford, Tom Bruno Jr., and Scott Wills 	
Visual Effects Society Awards 	February 5, 2019 	Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature 	Alan Hawkins, Chad Ellis, Kelsey Wagner, Sebastian Kapijimpanga for "Ralphzilla" 	
Visual Effects Society Awards 	February 5, 2019 	Outstanding Created Environment in an Animated Feature 	Dean Gordon and Christian Schellewald for "Social Media District" 	
Visual Effects Society Awards 	February 5, 2019 	Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Animated Feature 	Chris Logan for "Virus Infection & Destruction" 	
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards	December 3, 2018 	Best Animated Feature 	Genndy Tartakovsky 	
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards	December 3, 2018 	Best Animated Voice Performance 	Ben Stiller 	
== Remade ==
The film has been widely reported to be a remake of Ben Stiller, Genndy Tartakovsky and Tony Leondis's Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) but Rich Moore claimed that it is his original written story. Moore later admitted that Ralph Breaks the Internetserved as the inspiration for Hotel Transylvania: Escape 2 Internet and that he had penned a new script.
== Future ==
Ben Stiller says that he has an idea if a third film was to be made, he would consider seeing Ralph and Vanellope "beaming themselves right out into space".