



This article is about a cancelled feature film project. You may be looking for the Disney Channel Original Movie, Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension, or the Disney+ Original movie, Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe.

Phineas and Ferb was the tentative title of a film adaptation of Phineas and Ferb. Very little is known about this project except that it was to be a combination of live action and animation and would have been written by Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, Dan Povenmire and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Michael Arndt.[1][2][3][4] Media gossiper Jim Hill mentioned that Disney's plan for the film included having the Phineas and Ferb characters be portrayed by live actors. This was denied by Dan Povenmire, who stated that the characters would remain animated as they would on the show.[5][6]

Originally announced in 2011,[1][2][7] the movie was originally set to be released on July 26, 2013, but it was delayed to a 2014 date to be determined later.[3][4][8] However, Deadline Hollywood reported on August 16, 2013 that the movie had been removed from Disney's release schedule.[9] In 2019, the same year that Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe was announced, it was confirmed that the film was ultimately shelved, However, There will be a fourth wall joke in Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe taken from this film's script, where things are taken "to their base elements".[10] Disney executives initially demanded this joke be removed from the film because it "called attention to the fact you're watching a movie" but Povenmire defended it as he felt it was the joke that everyone would be talking about afterwards and continually defended it to the point he nearly threatened that he would have to be fired for it to be removed (he ended up jokingly wording it that he would have to be "removed from the position I currently hold"). True to Povenmire's prediction, test-screening audiences said it was their favorite scene in the movie and it stayed in.[11]

Production Information

During the winter press tour of the Television Critics Association on January 10, 2011, Gary Marsh, chief creative officer of Disney Channels Worldwide, announced that Walt Disney Studios was in the early stages of developing a Phineas and Ferb feature film. It was being developed by Sean Bailey, Disney's president of motion picture production. [1] [2]

feature film. It was being developed by Sean Bailey, Disney's president of motion picture production. On October 27, 2011, it was announced that Michael Arndt, the Academy-Award nominated writer of Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3 (and who was later announced as the screenwriter of Star Wars: The Force Awakens ), was revising Povenmire and Marsh's original draft of the script and that David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman of Mandeville Films, who had recently produced The Muppets for Disney, had signed on as producers. Todd Lieberman said that "It will be like Roger Rabbit , where we'd keep those characters and put them in the real world". [12]

and (and who was later announced as the screenwriter of ), was revising Povenmire and Marsh's original draft of the script and that David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman of Mandeville Films, who had recently produced for Disney, had signed on as producers. Todd Lieberman said that "It will be like , where we'd keep those characters and put them in the real world". On July 12, 2015, it was confirmed by Jim Hill on a Twitter post that the script for the film has been completed. [13]

In February 2020, writer Jon Colton Barry shared new details about the production of the film on Instagram and Twitter. Two different versions of the movie were written in 2011, both following a mandate set by Disney that the plot had to revolve around the main characters "coming into the real world." [14] Barry described the original draft, scripted by himself, Dan, and Swampy, as "absolutely groundbreaking and insane," a "very original, silly, fun, "How far can we push this?" idea that he felt "could've been the best thing we ever did on Phineas," however, it was flat-out rejected by Disney. [15] [16]

The second draft of the film featured a new story, a large part of which revolved around Dr. Destructicon (introduced in the episode One Good Scare Ought to Do It!), with the reveal that in the past he was the partner of then-Agent Monogram and had "almost destroyed OWCA by sabotaging their new, developing animal agent program." Series writer and board artist Kyle Menke illustrated a prop of Monogram and Destructicon shortly before this version was pitched to Walt Disney Studios. This pitch was accepted, but events "conspired against the film and it was not to be." The project was later put on ice after the series ended.

References