St. Hopes: The Face-Off Against KORPS

### Starring

Ben Kerfoot, Moustafa Chousein-Oglou, Sam Melvin, Scott Gibbins, Jenny Huxley-Golden, Eliza Cummings-Cove, Chanelle Owen, Chris Stanton Jonny Freeman, Danny John-Jules, Sam Ardley, Bel Powley, Julian Bleach

### Box office

$16,568,685 (worldwide estimate)

**St. Hopes: The Face-Off Against KORPS** is an action adventure movie written by Nick Follows and Keith Brumpton, directed by Brumpton and released through Paramount Pictures on August 28, 1999. It is the only feature film made from St. Hopes. It aired on television on CBBC in 2009 for it's tenth anniversary.

## Plot

Mrs. King installs the WASP: The Worldwide Slang Prevention System, within the school. It becomes highly problematic, however, it does not compare to what would occur next: a massive threat to the United Kingdom has arisen; KORPS, a massive criminal organization that is far more legitimate than the so-called SKUL. As a result, the MI9 have launched the M.I. High project, and four students are chosen to become spies to help MI9 tackle this threat.

Those four students happen to be Oscar Cole, Stewart Critchley, Scoop Doggy, and Blane Whittaker, and they wind up with the school's janitors, Lenny Bicknall and Frank London, as their masters, in secret underground headquarters accessed through the school's store room. Feeling that the team isn't enough, they decide to add in two more students: Avril Franklin and Davina Berry. They are sent on a mission to thwart KORPS' plans of brainwashing the Prime Minister into declaring World War III, neutralizing the leader, the Mastermind, and having the MI9 raid KORPS HQ and arrest everybody suspected. However, the task goes horribly off-course, and the six-spy team end up destroying KORPS themselves in a grueling battle that almost costs them their lives.

## Reception

The movie wound up being extremely successful, raking in $16 million worldwide against a $200,000 budget. It was named as one of the best movies of 1999. Avril became an early viral internet meme with her long-winded insult during the climactic destruction scene: "You fucking deranged fuck shit cunt licking ass raping hagged old fucking cock sucking shit headed fuck headed Jane FUCKING Asher!". A .mov file of the quote was spread virally on message boards and was still a popular meme in the mid-late 2000s and saw a resurgence in 2018.

## Trivia

* In an early draft of the script, Avril reveals herself to be bisexual, which prompts Davina to ask her out on the next prom date, revealing her bisexuality too. This was dropped, as Brumpton had planned her to date Oscar later on, and felt an Avril/Davina relationship would create a plot hole. The scene was filmed before it was dropped, however.
* St. Hearts High School makes it's first appearance, and the characters of Dan Morgan, Tom Tupper, Aneisha Jones, Keri Summers, Zoe, Lady J and Roland Donaldson are alluded to during the teacher's roll call. All characters would appear in Season 6-7 onwards.
* Sam Melvin, who played Scoop Doggy, expressed a desire to do a sequel after filming wrapped, but knew one could never be made as everyone felt it would be a tough act to follow.
* There were multiple deleted scenes: one where Oscar starts to eye Avril's backside increasingly while they are sneaking through a corridor in the KORPS base, one where Scoop snorts a line of cocaine he brought with him on a desk in the KORPS HQ, one where Avril declares she is bisexual and Davina asks her out to the prom, one where Oscar passes out and Avril sneakily kisses him on the lips, one where Oscar becomes enraged at the failure of the team and quits doing the mission until Avril forces him back, one where Stewart and Blane acquire dowsing rods at school and have a brief fling with witchcraft, and one where Scoop recalls the time he sneaked into Cackles Academy and "fuckin' screwed" Enid Nightshade under a desk. All of these scenes were included in the 10th Anniversary DVD/Blu-Ray release. They are notable in that the quality of the deleted scenes matched the quality of the movie itself; a rare feat considering most deleted scenes of films are sourced from workprints. Brumpton kept the original negatives and they were given the same restoration treatment the rest of the film was given. Limited-edition copies were later released with the scenes put back in the film, extending it by an hour.
* During filming, Avril's actress, Jenny Huxley-Golden, began acting as her character on set the entire time as a joke, which prompted the other cast members to do the same. Brumpton later said: "It was like working with the characters instead of the actors!"
* Huxley-Golden suddenly belted out a on-key, on-time rendition of "Hey Jude" during an ADR session to test the microphone; Brumpton secretly had it recorded, and it was later used in the Season 4 episode: "Avril Sings The Beatles!", which parodies tribute cover albums.
* The rock instrumentals that play during the fight scenes were done by the actors of The Boys themselves. who had been secretly rehearsing as a band of the same name for some time prior. They would later accompany Huxley-Golden during her other Beatles covers in the aforementioned episode above.