Bee Movie

***Bee Movie*** is a 2007 American computer-animated comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. Directed by Simon J. Smith and Steve Hickner, the film stars Jerry Seinfeld and Renée Zellweger, with Matthew Broderick, Patrick Warburton, John Goodman and Chris Rock in supporting roles. Its story follows Barry B. Benson (Seinfeld), a honey bee who sues the human race for exploiting bees, after learning from his florist friend Vanessa (Zellweger) that humans sell and consume honey.

*Bee Movie* is the first motion-picture script to be written by Seinfeld, who co-wrote the film with Spike Feresten, Barry Marder, and Andy Robin. The film was produced by Seinfeld, Christina Steinberg, and Cameron Stevning. The production was designed by Alex McDowell, and Christophe Lautrette was the art director. Nick Fletcher was the supervising editor and music for the film was composed by Rupert Gregson-Williams.

The cast and crew include some veterans of the long-running NBC sitcom *Seinfeld*, including writer/producers Feresten and Robin, and actors Warburton (*Seinfeld* character David Puddy), Michael Richards (*Seinfeld* character Cosmo Kramer), and Larry Miller (who plays the title character on the *Seinfeld* episode "The Doorman").

*Bee Movie* was theatrically released on November 2, 2007 to mixed reviews, with primary criticisms aimed at the premise, and grossed $293 million worldwide.

## Plot

A young honey bee named Barry B. Benson (Jerry Seinfeld) has recently graduated from college and is about to enter the hive's Honex Industries honey-making workforce alongside his best friend Adam Flayman (Matthew Broderick). Barry is initially excited to join the workforce, but his courageous, non-conformist attitude emerges upon discovering that his choice of job will never change once picked. Later, the two bees run into a group of Pollen Jocks, bees who collect pollen from flowers outside the hive. The Jocks offer to take Barry outside the hive to a flower patch, and he accepts. While on his first pollen-gathering expedition in New York City, Barry gets lost in the rain, and ends up on the balcony of a human florist named Vanessa (Renée Zellweger). Upon noticing Barry, Vanessa's boyfriend Ken (Patrick Warburton) attempts to squash him, but Vanessa gently catches and releases Barry outside the window, saving his life.

Barry later returns to express his gratitude to Vanessa, breaking the sacred rule that bees are not supposed to communicate with humans. Barry and Vanessa develop a close bond, bordering on attraction, and spend time together frequently. Later, while Barry and Vanessa are walking through a grocery store, Barry is horrified to discover that the humans have been stealing and eating the bees' honey for centuries. He decides to journey to Honey Farms, which supplies the grocery store with its honey. Furious at the poor treatment of the bees in the hive, including the use of bee smokers to subdue the colony, Barry decides to sue the human race to put an end to the exploitation of bees.

Barry's mission attracts wide attention from bees and humans alike, and hundreds of people show up to watch the trial. Although Barry is up against tough defense attorney Layton T. Montgomery (John Goodman) the trial's first day goes well. That evening, Barry is having dinner with Vanessa when Ken shows up. Vanessa leaves the room, and Ken expresses to Barry that he hates the pair spending time together. When Barry leaves to use the restroom, Ken ambushes Barry and attempts to kill him, only for Vanessa to intervene and break up with Ken. The next day at the trial, Montgomery unleashes an unrepentant character assassination against the bees leading a deeply offended Adam to sting him; Montgomery immediately exaggerates the stinging to make himself appear the victim of an assault while simultaneously denouncing Adam. Adam's actions jeopardize the bees' credibility and put his life in danger, though he manages to survive. While visiting Adam in the hospital, Barry notices two people smoking outside, and is struck by inspiration. The next day, Barry wins the trial by exposing the jury to the cruel treatment bees are subjected to, particularly the smoker, and humans are banned from stealing honey from bees ever again.

Having lost the trial, Montgomery cryptically warns Barry that a negative shift in the balance of nature is imminent. As it turns out, the sudden, massive stockpile of honey has put every bee out of a job, including the vitally important Pollen Jocks. As a result, without anything to pollinate them, all of the world's plant life slowly begins to die out. Before long, the last remaining flowers on Earth are being stockpiled in Pasadena, California for what is expected to be the final Tournament of Roses Parade. Barry and Vanessa travel to the parade and steal a parade float, which they load onto a plane to be delivered to the bees so they can re-pollinate the world's flowers. When the plane's pilot and copilot are knocked unconscious, Vanessa is forced to land the plane, with help from Barry and the bees from Barry's hive.

Armed with the pollen of the last flowers, Barry and the Pollen Jocks manage to reverse the damage and save the world's flowers, restarting the bees' honey production. Humans and bees are seen working together, and certain brands of honey are now "bee-approved". Barry becomes a member of the Pollen Jocks, helping to pollinate the world's plants. Barry is also seen running a law firm inside Vanessa's flower shop, titled "Insects at Law", handling disputes between animals and humans. Ken is not pleased with this discovery as Andy (Chuck Martin) tells him to let it go. The film ends with Barry flying off to a flower patch with the Pollen Jocks.

## Voice cast

* Jerry Seinfeld as Barry B. Benson
* Renée Zellweger as Vanessa Bloome
* Matthew Broderick as Adam Flayman
* Patrick Warburton as Ken
* John Goodman as Layton T. Montgomery
* Chris Rock as Mooseblood the Mosquito
* Kathy Bates as Janet B. Benson
* Barry Levinson as Martin B. Benson
* Megan Mullally as Trudy, Honex Tour Guide
* Rip Torn as Lou Lo Duca and the Pollen Jocks General
* Oprah Winfrey as Judge Bumbleton
* Michael Richards as Bud Ditchwater
* Larry King as Bee Larry King
* Larry Miller as Dean Buzzwell
* Jim Cummings as Title Narrator and Graduation Announcer
* David Moses Pimentel as Hector
* Chuck Martin as Andy
* Brian Hopkins as Sandy Shrimpkin and TSA Agent
* John DiMaggio as Bailiff and Janitor
* Tress MacNeille as Jeanette Chung, Mother and Cow
* Simon J. Smith as Truck Driver and Chet
* Ray Liotta as Himself
* Sting as Himself
* Robert Jayne as Bee (*uncredited*)
* Carl Kasell as Himself (*uncredited*)

## Bee Movie

### Length

44:56

All music composed by Rupert Gregson-Williams, except as noted.

**Track listing:**

1. Graduation
2. Honex
3. The Pollen Jocks
4. Barry Flies Out
5. Vanessa Intervenes
6. Sugar, Sugar - The Archies
7. Assault on Honey Farms
8. Ken
9. Barry Turns the Screws
10. Monty Slanders and Adam Stings
11. Hearts, Flowers and Hive Closures
12. Honey Round Up
13. Rooftop Consequences
14. Land That Plane
15. Here Comes the Sun - Sheryl Crow
16. Thinkin' Bee (iTunes bonus track) - Jerry Seinfeld & Matthew Broderick

## Marketing

### Trailers

Two teaser trailers were released for the film that feature Seinfeld dressed in a bee costume, trying to shoot the film in live-action. Eddie Izzard portrays the direction agent, and Steven Spielberg suggests to Seinfeld in the second trailer to just do it as a cartoon. Upon the release of the first trailer, it was announced that three of the live-action teasers would be released in total. In the second trailer, Steven Spielberg is taking a picture of himself and an assistant director, referencing the camera gag Ellen DeGeneres pulled on him during the 79th Academy Awards. After Seinfeld fails to do scenes in live-action, Spielberg suggests Seinfeld that the film can just be made as a cartoon. One of the crew members announces that the film is a cartoon, having the crew leave the stage studio. The trailer finally shows the movie as an animated CGI feature. Also in the second trailer, the bear that jumps out at Barry is Vincent the Bear from *Over the Hedge*, another DreamWorks Animation SKG movie.

The third trailer was released with *Shrek the Third*, but this was an animated teaser. The fourth trailer was released on the *Bee Movie* official website, and revealed most of the film's plot. In addition, two weeks before the release, NBC aired 22 behind-the-scenes skits called "Bee Movie TV Juniors," all of which are staged and tongue-in-cheek in nature. The popular internet site Gaia Online featured a great deal of promotional material for the film.

### Books

Ten books were released for the film: *Bee Movie: The Story Book*, *Bee Movie: The Honey Disaster*, *The Art of Bee Movie*, *Bee Movie: Deluxe Sound Storybook*, *Bee Movie (Ultimate Sticker Books)*, *Bee Movie (I Can Find It)*, *Bee Movie: The Junior Novel*, *Bee Movie: What’s the Buzz?*, *Bee Movie Mad Libs*, and *Bee Movie: Bee Meets Girl*.

### Video game

A video game titled *Bee Movie Game* was released on October 30, 2007 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 2, and Nintendo DS.

### Home media

*Bee Movie* was released on DVD on March 11, 2008 in both fullscreen and widescreen formats and a 2-disc special edition DVD. The single-disc extras include the "Inside the Hive: The Cast of *Bee Movie*" and "Tech of *Bee Movie*" featurettes, "We Got the Bee" music video, "Meet Barry B. Benson" feature, and interactive games. The special edition DVD extras additionally include a filmmaker commentary, alternate endings, lost scenes with commentary, the live action trailers, and *Jerry's Flight Over Cannes*. An HD DVD version was cancelled after the demise of HD DVD. Paramount released the movie on Blu-ray Disc on May 20, 2008.

## Reception

### Critical reception

The film received a 51% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 169 reviews with an average rating of 5.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "*Bee Movie* has humorous moments, but its awkward premise and tame delivery render it mostly forgettable." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 54 based on 34 reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

### Box office

The film opened in second place to *American Gangster*, but its gross of $38,021,044 had it more in line with the studios' lowest-grossing features, such as *Shark Tale*. The film had an average of $9,679 from 3,928 theaters. In its second weekend, the film held well with a 33% drop to $25,565,462 and claiming the top spot, resulting in a $6,482 average from expanding to 3,944 theaters. Its widest release was 3,984 theaters, and closed on February 14, 2008 after 104 days of release, grossing $126,631,277 domestically along with an additional $160,963,300 overseas for a worldwide total of $287,594,577. Based on its domestic box office performance, the film failed to recoup its production budget of $150 million. Following the income from worldwide box office, home media, and pay television, the film ultimately turned a small profit for the studio.

## Lawsuits

### Beebylon vs. DreamWorks

*Bee Movie* is alleged to be similar to a concept developed in 2000 by a team of Swedish animation students, which they claim was presented to DreamWorks in 2001 under the name *Beebylon*. The animation students say DreamWorks rejected the idea, on the basis of it being "too childish". When *Bee Movie* was announced in 2003, the students claim they once again contacted DreamWorks to make sure the movie was not similar to their original concept, and was given a reassuring answer. When one of the members of the *Beebylon* team saw a trailer of the movie in 2007, he found it to be extremely similar and attempted to find a U.S. lawyer who could represent them. Jerry Seinfeld rejected the plagiarism claims during his PR tour for *Bee Movie* in Sweden. "I'm doing my best not to laugh and I'm taking it as serious as I can. But it's a little bit hard. It is entirely possible that somebody else came up with an idea about making a movie about bees. I knew nothing of this until this very morning and I hope they are not too upset."

### Beeceuticals vs. DreamWorks

A Florida-based cosmetics company called Beeceuticals filed a lawsuit over the use of their trademarked phrase "Give Bees a Chance". The suit between the parties was settled out of court.

## Internet popularity

Several years after the film's release, *Bee Movie* had an unexpected rise in popularity as an Internet meme.

In 2015, posts of the entire film screenplay spread across Facebook. In November 2016 YouTube user "Avoid at All Costs" uploaded a video where the entire film sped up every time the word "bee" was used. The video, titled *The entire bee movie but every time they say bee it gets faster*, has gathered over 17 million views as of May 2017. The popularity of this video spawned several variants where the movie or trailer is edited in unusual ways. *Vanity Fair* would later characterize the film's late popularity as "totally bizarre."

There have been some attempts to explain the phenomenon: Jason Richards, whom *Vanity Fair* identified as one of the larger promoters of the meme via his @Seinfeld2000 Twitter handle has noted the "off-brand Pixar quality" as a possible reason, while Barry Marder, one of the film's script writers, identified "that odd relationship between an insect and a human woman," as the possible cause. Inverse meanwhile writes that the film's internet popularity "was a reaction not just to the movie itself but to the realization among millennials that they’d been shown a truly odd movie as children and thought nothing of it."

Writing for *New York* magazine, Paris Martineau identified the meme as starting on Tumblr circa 2011 at which point users would, apparently in earnest, post the opening quotation identifying it as inspiring. By December 2012, however these posts became so ubiquitous that it would inspire parodies. It has also been suggested that the spread of videos such as *The entire bee movie but every time they say bee it gets faster* was inspired by the preceding popularity of the "We Are Number One" meme videos, many of which used a similar title format of "We Are Number One but...".

Seinfeld said that he has no interest to make a sequel to *Bee Movie* in the wake of its online popularity. During a Reddit AMA in June 2016, a fan asked if a *Bee Movie 2* would happen. Seinfeld had this to say,

> I considered it this spring for a solid six hours. There’s a fantastic energy now for some reason, on the internet particularly. Tumblr, people brought my attention to. I actually did consider it, but then I realized it would make Bee Movie 1 less iconic. But my kids want me to do it, a lot of people want me to do it. A lot of people that don’t know what animation is want me to do it. If you have any idea what animation is, you’d never do it.
>
>

## Notes

* In July 2014, the film's distribution rights were purchased by DreamWorks Animation from Paramount Pictures and transferred to Universal Pictures.