Marco 5: Epilogue

*Marco 5: Epilogue* (most commonly known as *Marco 5*) is an upcoming 2022 Marcanese-American computer animated action/science fiction dystopian comedy film directed by Kevin Armand and produced by Cody Cameron & Joe Murray, from a screenplay by Mike Rianda & Gennedy Tartakovsky (who previously worked on the *Hotel Cloudylandia* films and the 2021 Marco Toon *Family Staycation*). The seventh and final installment in the *Marco* franchise, the film would have Marco & his friends saving the world once again from an evil AI algorithm clone of Marco after enjoying their retired lives from espionage. The returning cast would be joined by newcomers Jake T. Austin, Ben Mendelsohn, Jamie Demetriou, Chloe Garcia-Moretz, Abbi Jacobson, Johnny Depp, Adam Sandler, Keegan Michael-Key, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Emily Blunt, Clint Eastwood, David Cross, Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Wilg, Rianda (as the voice of Richard), Tommy Lee Jones, among others.

The film will be distributed by Columbia Pictures, Paramount Pictures, & Anaya Animation without involvement from Actors 3D Entertainment; and will be released theatrically and stream on Anaya+ January 12, 2022 following *Joaquin & Emiliano: The Rise Of Marco.*

## Marco 5: Epilogue

### Starring

Hugh JackmanJoseph Gonzales Jr.

Tina Fey

Renee Zellweger

Mel Gibson

Pierre Coffin

Jason Sudekis

Julia Sawalha

Danny DeVito

Kristen Bell

Ed Helms

Jake T. Austin

Chloe Garcia-Moretz

Ben Mendelsohn

Jamie Demetriou

Johnny Depp

## Plot

After the events of *Family Staycation,* Marco & Aileene attempt to propose each other for once only for Aileene to leave him alone after she decides to stay with another boyfriend. Marco, unable to cope with Aileene, heads back home and keeps the secret to himself. Three years later, Marco & his family attend an Astros game at Minute Maid Park in order to relieve Marco's feelings although the Astros sadly lost the game. Marco's parents decide to take him and his siblings on a lifetime road trip before Pepe graduates from high school. After the road trip through various places such as Schiltterbahn New Braunfels and Hermann Park among others, Marco & his family throw off one more party with their friends and Miguel Angel's family in honor of Marco. However. Marco still feels empty inside and tries to contact Aileene at his lair, who refuses his call three times in favor of spending time with her new boyfriend. Wanting to prove himself again as someone genius, Marco assembles AI, his new artificially intelligent and kind algorithm whom Marco shows to his friends much to their surprise. Marco & his friends head out to Galveston for a nice spring break vacation, leaving AI aside and forcing him to change Marco's programmed code by himself. Meanwhile at Galveston, Marco takes his friends to Kemah Boardwalk and Gaido's Seafood Restaurant afterwards for dinner. After the trip, Marco & his friends were about to head back home until Marco notices a thundercloud coming towards them, which AI formed so that he could abduct all of humanity to his newly-made planet AI 5000. Although Marco tells him to stop, AI takes all of Marco's friends, their families, and the rest of humanity with space cubes except for Marco & his siblings along with their cousins and Miguel Angel himself, whom remain stranded on Galveston's ruins. Suddenly, an SUV comes and picks them up to Silver Springs, where they meet the Zbylots and their friends once again. Marco, however, soon realizes that he got all lame by the next day much to his horror. Together, they try to enjoy dinner by themselves and hatch several plans to get their missing friends and the rest of humanity back to Earth safely. Peter insists that they could build a rocket in order to get there, to which Marco agrees after he approves Peter's plan, so they blast off to outer space. At AI-5000, AI and Madcap give everyone their hate speech and use Edgar for their latest attempt at killing off humanity: placing some microchip inside his body. Shocked to see this being done to Edgar, everyone else attempt to get out and free themselves from their doom, only for them to be trapped inside their space cubes again by AI's robots and drones.

As Marco & his crew get pass ET-3000, they encounter a series of mishaps along the way as they approach the Sun. Luckily, they arrive at AI-5000 and venture through the high-tech field known as Technophobe, where they get guided to AI's fortress by Camerabot, Andre, and Deborah. Once they get there, Marco & his friends try to defeat AI but the latter plunges them to a stolen section of the Sahara Desert. There, they survive the desert and later some jungle in Uganda, Africa in which they meet various African people and successfully head back to AI-5000. However, AI and Madcap take Marco prisoner and attempt injecting him the microchip inside his damaged skin, to which Marco frees himself back to Earth after AI's experiment failed. Not seeing his friends from far away, Marco gets lonely until then he befriends Princy, who welcomes him to her own coffee shop with her signature frappe. Marco thanks her and tells her about his missing friends at AI-5000 and later they spend time together at Silver Springs, where they start their relationship. Meanwhile, AI takes the rest of Marco's friends captive and orders his troops to arrest Marco even though they still don't know Princy is also on Earth. The next day, Marco meets Princy at the local library and takes her to his lair, where Marco realizes that he gained plenty of superpowers thanks to the frappe and both arrive to AI-5000 from there via Marco's Flying Van V. Upon arriving there, Marco teleports himself and frees all of his friends while fighting off AI's drones, and everyone gets teleported back to Earth except for Marco's friends, whom want to join him and Princy to eradicate the remaining robots and drones. After defeating them thanks to Marco's Giant Robotizer, they go track down AI and Madcap although they are being challenged to a AI-based hopscotch game. The heroes unexpectedly win and return to Earth while Marco tries to suck AI to his laptop after defeating Madcap, to which he fails when AI creates several alter-ego clones of Marco to arrest him. As Marco goes to the dungeon, he sees a digital version of Aileene and confesses to her about the creation of AI, but she fades away from existence once Marco touches her. Being stripped of his powers, Marco ultimately gives up forcing AI to take away Princy. However, when he suddenly hears that Princy would get injected, Marco rescues her & defeats AI by means of telekinesis having gained AI's powers, and sacrifices himself in favor of his friends and family. Having returned to Earth, Marco gets congratulated by everyone else despite him being accused of AI's "evil" programming; however, he tells everyone that AI programmed himself to evil and they believe him. At evening, Marco's friends and family celebrate one last party before Marco's graduation. Later, Aileene apologizes Marco but he gently chooses to stay with Princy for some time, saying one last goodbye to his friends.

In the post-credits scene, Marco suddenly dies of heart disease four years later and ascends up to heaven with his new heavenly companion Mark, much to his friends' mourning; they later prepare him a coffin and remember him with a Sunday memorial service at church dedicated to Marco. Later, Marco's friends give their own testimonies concerning Marco's death.

## Cast

* Hugh Jackman as Marco
* Joseph Gonzales Jr. as Pepe
* Tina Fey as Isabella
* Pierre Coffin as Joaquin & Emiliano, the kids, Brian, and Mateo
* Mel Gibson as Kevin
* Renee Zellweger as Marlene, Aileene, and Princy, a teenage girl who befriends Marco.
* Jason Sudekis as Josue
* Julia Sawalha as Melissa
* Danny DeVito as Derek
* Kristen Bell as Fabi
* Ed Helms as Pohlino and Bom Bin
* Ben Mendelsohn as AI, Marco's kind & smart AI algorithm clone who became evil after realizing that Marco programmed him to be good.
* Jamie Demetriou as Madcap, AI's maniacal but clumsy hologram henchman.
* Chloe Garcia-Moretz as Leah & Emily
* Abbi Jacobson as Sofia
* Mike Rianda as Richard Zimmerman,
* Adam Sandler as Pastor Scott Zbylot, the senior pastor of Silver Springs Baptist Church.
* Keegan Michael-Key as Justin Zimmerman, the youngest member of the Zimmerman family
* Dwayne Johnson
* Jason Statham
* Emily Blunt as Emily Zimmerman, Richard's sister
* Clint Eastwood as Kurt Zimmerman, the father of the Zimmerman family
* Tommy Lee Jones as Agent Clark, a licensed special agent who helps Marco & his friends
* David Cross as Peter Zbylot
* Kathryn Hahn as Alice Zbylot, the mother of the Zbylot family
* Kristen Wilg as Hannah Zbylot, the daughter of Scott and Alice

## Production

### Development

Sony confirmed that there would be a fifth *Marco* film in 2017 after the ongoing success and popularity of the *Marco* franchise following *Marco 4.* Director Chris Melendari stated that "he won't be making the fifth *Marco* movie" and left it to former executive producer Kevin Armand, who was very interested in creating a *Marco* film. Phil Lord & Christopher Miller left the film to work on other projects from Anaya Animation, so Cody Cameron & Joe Murray were hired to become the film's producers, and Mike Rianda chose to do the screenplay. According to Armand, *Marco 5* will be the fifth and final film in the franchise, and will have Marco & his friends enjoying their retirement from too much espionage until a worldwide pandemic causes them to save the world once again. Production began in September 2017 under the title *Marco 5: Family Staycation* and got slated for an August 2020 release, but troubled production issues (and the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic) forced Sony to send the film to development hell and release it the following year. In April 2020, Sony released the first teaser trailers for the film, which received mixed reception from fans and audiences alike, mostly criticizing the "worldwide pandemic" plot (because of the COVID-19 pandemic) and its hit-or-miss humor. In response to the trailers, Sony & Actors 3D stated the following in their Twitter accounts:

"*We really apologize for the following incident that occurred this April, it was a poor choice we've made at our great beloved studio. All this effort we have done to push this film ahead has been a huge challenge for us due to many production issues and COVID-19. Please forgive us for this, but we will delay this film and release it sometime next year."*

In June 2020, Actors 3D Entertainment posted on its social media accounts that *Marco 5* will be released in summer 2022 in favor of *Joaquin & Emiliano: The Rise Of Marco*, which was completed and slated for June 2021 (and also in response to the first teaser trailers Sony had released for *Marco 5*). On November 2020, Actors 3D Entertainment decided to merge the film to a February 2022 release; and later, on February 2021, the film got moved to a March 2022 release to save more time on the film. The following month, since Universal Pictures made a deal with Sony that *Joaquin & Emiliano: The Rise Of Marco* would be their last *Marco* film, Sony hosted a bidding war in which Lionsgate, Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures joined in to obtain the rights of co-producing *Marco 5*; and Paramount won the bidding war that month. After having tumultuous production stages, Anaya Animation went on to complete the rest of the film, under the new title *Marco 5: Epilogue,* since Anaya Animation released a Marco Toons short film, titled *Family Staycation*, on YouTube*.* According to the studio, the film will blend in elements of science-fiction with the franchise's traditional spy theme and will parody various science-fiction movies such as *Terminator, Independence Day,* and *The Day After Tomorrow.* Later, it was revealed that the film would feature an AI algorithm clone of Marco as the film's main antagonist, and that Marco & his friends would head to Galveston for a nice spring break vacation. The film will also be a science-fiction version of *It's A Wonderful Life,* as it has Marco & his friends in some alternative dystopian universe once their world has changed.

### Casting

The original cast are joined by newcomers Jake T. Austin, Ben Mendelsohn, Jamie Demetriou, Chloe Garcia-Moretz, Abbi Jacobson, Johnny Depp, and some others as of April 2021.

### Marketing

Whataburger would promote the film with small plush toys of the *Marco* characters in their kids' meals. Air Jordan will also promote the film with several advertisements starring Marco & Pepe. Other companies include: Dr. Pepper, Dollar General, General Mills, and Samsung.

* The official movie trailer got released on June 13, 2021 following *Joaquin & Emiliano: The Rise Of Marco.*

## Soundtrack

The official soundtrack for this film got released in December 18, 2021 before the film's release date.

Track listing

## Release

Originally slated for an August 2020 release, the film got shifted to a summer 2021 release following the COVID-19 pandemic. When *Joaquin & Emiliano: The Rise Of Marco* was completed, the film was pushed back for an February 2022 release; and later the film got moved to March 2022. *Marco 5: Epilogue* will be released to theaters and on Anaya+ January 12, 2022.

*Marco 5: Epilogue* is rated PG by the MPAA for "action, some rude humor, mild language, and thematic elements"