Open Season 0001

***Open Season*** is a 2006 American computer-animated comedy film and the first installment in the film franchise, directed by ***Roger Allers***, ***Jill Culton*** and ***Anthony Stacchi***, produced by ***Michelle Murdocca***, ***Amy Jupiter***, ***Steve Moore***, and ***John B. Carls*** and written by ***Steve Bencich*** and ***Ron J. Friedman***. It was released on September 29, 2006.

## *Open Season 0001*

### Genre

Comedy
Drama
Action

### Directed by

Jill Culton
Roger Allers
Anthony Stacchi

### Written by

Steve Bencich
Ron J. Friedman

File:Profile - An Title Card for Open Season 0001.jpg
The film stars ***Martin Lawrence***, ***Ashton Kutcher***, ***Gary Sinise***, ***Debra Messing***, ***Jane Krakowski***, and ***Billy Connolly***.
It was followed by *Open Season 2* (2008) and *Open Season 3* (2010). A ***video game*** for the film was released on multiple platforms, unlike the sequels (for an unknown reason).

## Plot

In the tranquil mountainous town of ***Timberline***, a 900-pound grizzly bear named ***Boog*** (***Martin Lawrence***) enjoys a captive, but happy, existence. He spends his day as the star attraction of the town's nature show under the name "The Mighty Grizzly." Boog spends his nights living the life of luxury in the garage of his owner, a park ranger named ***Beth*** (***Debra Messing***), who raised him since he was a cub.
One day, a hunter named ***Shaw*** (***Gary Sinise***) drives into town with a deer named ***Elliot*** (***Ashton Kutcher***) strapped to the hood of his truck. Boog wakes up Elliot by poking him with a stick as they both scream in terror. With Boog reluctant to intervene, Elliot begs to Boog for help to escape. At the last minute and against his better judgment, Boog frees Elliot before Shaw could go after him, telling him to scamper off into the ***woods***, never expecting to see him again; however, Shaw has already noticed him and swears vengeance.
That night, Elliot follows Boog home and finds him sleeping in his garage and then starts throwing ***jackrabbits*** at his window. Elliot tells him he is intent on returning the favor by "freeing" him from his garage captivity. Elliot introduces Boog to a world of sweet temptations outside of the garage that he has never known. When Boog becomes intoxicated with sugar, events quickly spiral out of control as he and Elliot ransack the store. Elliot escapes before Boog is caught by ***Gordy*** (***Gordon Tootoosis***), the sheriff of Timberline and Beth's best friend.

At the nature show, Boog meets up with Elliot, who is being chased by Shaw. Boog attacks Elliot, making the audience panic and flee before Boog threatens to kill Elliot in anger. Shaw prepares to shoot Boog, but Boog is instead shot by Beth with a tranquilizer gun and proceeds to shoot Elliot's butt 6 times. An upset Gordy is about to arrest Shaw, but he has already escaped. Gordy convinces Beth to release Boog and Elliot into the Timberline National Forest, only 3 days before the start of open season.

Since he lacks any outdoor skills, Boog takes Elliot as his hapless guide to take him back home. However, they quickly learn that the forest is every animal for itself. The duo run into their share of the forest animals, including short-tempered skunks named ***Rosie*** (***Michelle Murdocca***) and ***Maria*** (***Nika Futterman***), psychotic mallards named ***Serge*** (***Danny Mann***) and ***Deni*** (***Matthew W. Taylor***), and jackrabbits. They also run into critters like ***McSquizzy*** (***Billy Connolly***), a Scottish squirrel, his gang called the ***Furry Tail Clan***, ***Reilly*** (***Jon Favreau***), ***O'Toole*** (***Fergal Reilly***) and Reilly's beaver construction worker team and ***Buddy*** (Matthew W. Taylor), a porcupine who is in search of a friend. With each adverse encounter, Boog begins to learn about self-reliance and Elliot gains self-respect. Later, Elliot finds ***Giselle*** (***Jane Krakowski***), his love interest, but is also found by the ***herd*** and their leader ***Ian*** (***Patrick Warburton***), Elliot's arch-rival who has told him to infinitely leave the herd for loving Giselle. Ian, his herd and Giselle leave afterwards, soon followed by Boog and Elliot (who have both realized they have obtained true friendship).

Elliot tries to lead Boog out of the forest, but it becomes evident that he has no clue where they're going. After winding up at Reilly's dam, Boog and Elliot are almost shot by Shaw (who thinks he succeeded and left while laughing evilly), but it turns out he missed and just shot the tree they hid behind. Boog, who is desperate to leave, runs over the beaver dam, but it isn't a "load bearing structure". It breaks under his weight and the rush of the water washes everyone in the forest (including Shaw, who was leaving in his truck while still laughing to himself about when he thought he shot Boog and Elliot) to the clearing below. At first, everyone blames Boog, but he accuses Elliot of lying to him about leading him home. Elliot confesses, saying that he wanted Boog as a friend and thought if they just spent time together, it would work out. Despite Elliot apologizing and wanting him and Boog to remain best friends, the grizzly gets upset and says he is better off alone, and then leaves the forest to find his own way back home.

While trying to find a way back to Timberline, Boog stumbles upon Shaw's log cabin. Shaw soon realizes he's there and chases him to the city road, where Boog happens upon the glowing lights of Timberline. Instead of deserting his companions, Boog helps them defend themselves, using supplies taken from ***Bob*** and ***Bobbie*** (***Georgia Engel***)'s RV, while their pet dachshund ***Mr. Weenie*** (***Cody Cameron***) joins the fight.

The following day, Boog leads a rampage against the hunters, sending them running after McSquizzy blows up their trucks.

Shaw then returns for a final battle against Boog. Before Shaw can shoot and kill Boog, Elliot sacrifices himself to save Boog. Boog believes Shaw has killed Elliot and becomes enraged, then proceeds to tackle Shaw, roar in his face, and tie him up with his own gun. Boog finds that Elliot survived the blast, only losing his second antler in the fight. Beth returns to take Boog back home, but he decides to stay with his best friends instead. Boog and Beth then realize that Boog *is* home. Boog, Elliot, and the rest of the animals then have a rabbit fight. A rabbit thrown by Boog hits the screen. The rabbit slides down the screen, and the screen goes black, with a few of the credits appearing.

The scene then cuts to Shaw, who is still tarred and feathered in the leaves. Then, Bob and Bobbie's trailer appears, with the headlights flashing. Bob is reading the map to find Bigfoot. Bobbies sees Shaw in the middle of the road, gasps, and tries to warn Bob. The trailer hits Shaw, with the feathers hitting the screen. Bob and Bobbie then start laughing and then they high-five. "A real live homo Sasquatchez!", Bobbie exclaims. They start laughing again. The camera goes up to reveal that Shaw in on top of their trailer. Unable to escape, Shaw then shouts "*NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!*" and the camera zooms into his mouth and the full credits begin.

## Voice cast

* Martin Lawrence as Boog
* Ashton Kutcher as Elliot
* Gary Sinise as Shaw
* Debra Messing as Beth
* Jane Krakowski as Giselle
* Gordon Tootoosis as Gordy
* Patrick Warburton as Ian
* Billy Connolly as McSquizzy
* Cody Cameron as Mr. Weenie
* Georgia Engel as Bobbie
* Danny Mann as Serge
* Matthew W. Taylor as Buddy / Deni / Others
* Jon Favreau as Reilly
* Fergal Reilly as O'Toole
* Michelle Murdocca as Rosie
* Nika Futterman as Maria
* Jack McGee as Hunter
* Jack Angel, Peter Cullen, Kevin Michael Richardson, Michael Bell, Dana Snyder, Bob Bergen, Grey DeLisle, Cathy Cavadini, Bill Farmer, Gregg Berger, Lloyd Sherr, John Ratzenberger, John DiMaggio, Joe Alaskey, Jeff Bennett, Carlos Alazraqui, Jess Harnell, Dee Bradley Baker, John Cygan, Jan Rabson, Fred Tatasciore, Danny Mann, Jim Ward, Phil LaMarr, Kirk Baily, Jack Blessing, Ranjani Brow, David Cowgill, Caitlin Cutt, Elisa Gabrielli, Jackie Gonneau, Wendy Hoffman, Scott Menville, Renee Robert, André Sogliuzzo, Hans Tester as Additional Voices
* *(unknown)* as Beavers
* Frank Welker as Jackrabbits / Animals' Vocal Effects (uncredited)Template:Cite

## Production

The ideas for *Open Season* came from cartoonist Steve Moore], who is known for his comic strip *In the Bleachers*. Moore and producer John Carls submitted the story to Sony in June 2002, and the film immediately went into development. On February 29, 2004, Sony Pictures Animation announced the beginning of the production on its first CGI animated film *Open Season.*

The film location was inspired by the towns of Sun Valley, Idaho and McCall, Idaho, and the Sawtooth National Forest. References to the Lawn Lake, Colorado, Dam flood, Longs Peak, and other points of interest in the area are depicted in the film.

The Sony animation team developed a digital tool called shapers that allowed the animators to re-shape the character models into stronger poses and silhouettes and subtle distortions such as squash, stretch, and smears, typical of traditional, hand-drawn animation.

Until the film's premiere, Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher never met during production.

## Reception

Kevin Smith gave the film a good review during an appearance as a guest critic on *At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper* saying, "*If your kids like poop jokes as much as I do,* Open Season *will put a big smile on their faces.*" However, Richard Roeper gave the film a mixed review saying, "It's just okay, the animation is uninspired."

Despite receiving mixed reviews from film critics, the film was positively welcomed from audiences that praised it for its animation, humor, characters (especially Boog, Elliot and Shaw), the soundtrack, heart and character development.

*Open Season* opened #1 with $23 million on its opening weekend. It grossed $85.1 million in the United States and $104.8 million in foreign countries making $189.9 million worldwide.

*Rolling Stone* gave the film's soundtrack 3 out of 5 stars, as did Allmusic.

## Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-Ray some months after.

## Short film

A short film called *Boog and Elliot's Midnight Bun Run* was released in 2006. The short is presumably non canon.

## Sequels

Main articles: Open Season 0002, Open Season 0003, and Open Season 0004
The film was followed by three direct-to-video sequels: *Open Season 2* (2008), *Open Season 3* (2010), while another sequel, presumably set after the second film and six years before the third, *Open Season: Scared Silly* was released on 2016.

## Trivia

* It's currently the only theatrical Open Season film
* It's the only movie of the franchise where Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher voices Boog and Elliot
* Mr. Wheenie appears more ferocious than how he is after joining the wild animals.
* It's the first film of Sony.

## See also

* Film transcript
* *Open Season* franchise

## References

Template:Reflist

1. ↑ Open Season (2006). *Rotten Tomatoes*. Retrieved on November 10, 2011.
2. ↑ At the Movies Archive.
3. ↑ Open Season featuring the songs of Paul Westerberg. *Rolling Stone*. Retrieved on November 10, 2011.
4. ↑ Thomas Erlewine, Stephen. [[[:Template:Allmusic]] Open Season (Original Soundtrack) > Review]. Allmusic. Macrovision. Retrieved on August 16, 2009.