Over the past decade, “Bob’s Burgers” has built a cult following; the Belcher family is a household name, a subreddit dedicated to the series has hundreds of thousands of dedicated fans discussing every scene, and its recent season has stratospheric ratings. So, it should come as little surprise that the recently released “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” has already received glowing reviews – and sold millions of tickets.
However, the film spawned from the popular cartoon franchise wasn’t just created with “Bob’s Burgers” devotees in mind. It offers enjoyable familiarity – as well as an intriguing progression – for dedicated fans but still manages to be thoroughly enchanting for those who aren’t familiar with the Belchers. “We never wanted to have in-jokes or anything. We didn’t want someone who would see it with a person next to them that knows the show and they’re laughing and they’re not,” co-director Bernard Derriman told Variety Australia in an exclusive interview.
“The Bob’s Burgers Movie”, which was released in Australia on Thursday, 26th May, follows the Belcher family who begin to struggle after a broken water main blocks the entrance to their restaurant. Bob and Linda Belcher try everything they can think of to keep the business afloat, while the kids put their heads together to brainstorm another method to restore the restaurant’s success.
We sat down with Australian-born animator, producer, and director Bernard Derriman, who directed “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” alongside Loren Bouchard for a chat about the art of turning a successful TV show into a movie, how the decision came about, and how all of the moving parts interacted together.
First of all, congrats on the movie. How long, how long ago did you finish filming?
Thank you. We worked right up until the last minute, that’s the way we work on the show and for the movie too. It was late last year near the end of the year when they finally took it out of our hands.
When you directed the first few episodes, did you ever expect the show to have so much success that it would eventually become a movie?
No, absolutely not. I basically worked on the first season and it was a long time between the first season and the pickup for the second, meaning Fox was having some serious thoughts about picking it up again.
And, so when I was directing on that second season, it was a good show, but it wasn’t like a hit, it never really took off. So we always were sweating on it, basically. And at the end of every season, it was like, ‘are we gonna get picked up again?’ And, slowly, slowly, every season, the time between the pickup at the end of the season, the pickup got smaller and smaller. Eventually, we basically hit a hump around season five where we kind of got the idea that,’ okay, we’re gonna be going for a little while’, but no, to answer your question in those early seasons… Who knows, I could have been on another movie in the next year, you know?
Why was “Bob’s Burgers” turned into a movie, and how did that decision come about?
To be honest, it was really because they asked us [laughs]. We were working full time on the show, I personally had never, even thought [about it]. The Simpsons movie was out, but it had never crossed my mind. Only because we were just so busy making the show and we just did it all year round that it’s not like we have a lot of time off to do other things. And so it was, it was just at a point where we’d, we’d been busy with stuff.
And all of a sudden – I think it was around the time there’d been a management change at Fox – and someone came to us and said, ‘how would you like to make a Bob’s Burgers movie’? We were thrilled, but of course, the first thing was like, ‘how are we ever gonna do, how are we ever gonna be able to do this?’
It was a testament to our production team. Because it’s a bit like if you’re drawing an analogy, we’re a restaurant that’s working and have the one chef and we have the people that are all trained up and they’re all working seven days a week. And then all of a sudden, someone says, ‘can you open a new restaurant in a new location? That’s fancy’. And it’s like, ‘how do we possibly do that when we’re so busy doing this?’ But, luckily our production managed to basically try and fit us in and we were able to do it.
So when it comes to a movie that spawned off a series, do you think it’s important to make it feel different rather than just like a really long episode?
Yeah, that was at the forefront of everything. First and foremost, we love movies. Loren who I directed Bob’s with and Nora who wrote it, we just love, love movies. So, from the outset, we wanted this to be a big, big screen experience.
I think, and so in the writing of it, I think they did a fantastic job of really raising the stakes while keeping it within the world of Bob. So it, it didn’t feel like we were, you know, sending Bob into space or anything. It was, they managed to do it in a way that kept it true to the show – at a larger scale with greater stakes, and then visually, which I guess was more of my thing.
We really didn’t wanna break the show. We wanted [the movie] to feel like it was still part of the show. We didn’t wanna make it suddenly feel like it was in 3D or something. So we actually brought on a fantastic production designer by the name of Ruben Hickman. He has feature experience. He’d actually worked on SpongeBob too. So we had experience coming from working on a show that was going to the big screen, and he did an amazing job where he could just take our show backgrounds and elevate them in a way just by adding a different, huge, different paint light.
I would say to him, ‘I want this to feel like noon midday on a hot day, how can we make that look like a bright day?’ And he would just take it and the way he would drop in shadows and brighten up things – it was just incredible. I think that’s what you see when you see it on the big screen. It looks it deserves to be on the big screen when you see the detail and the color and everything, it’s it separates it from the show.
How closely did the writers, animators and cast all interact in the process?
I’ve had limited experience working on shows over here. Bob’s was one of my first jobs and then, so I’ve been here ever since but definitely unlike a lot of projects, the writers and the animators all work in the same building. And that’s huge. It’s a great, really great work environment because as a, I know as a director, if you had any sort of doubt or confused about anything that was on the page, you could just walk over to the writer’s room, find that writer have a chat to them about it. And they were always so open. So we had this great way of moving forward.
Whereas one previous show I worked on, the writers and the animators were totally separated. And then, you know you never saw any of the writers. You never knew, you were sort of always working through the showrunners. Luckily with Bob’s everyone sort of works together. We always have table reads too in the building. So that’s the one time the cast gets to sort of see everyone too. The cast will all come in for a table read and it’s in the same building, so everyone will sort of see each other.
Of course, dedicated Bob’s fans will watch the movie, but do you anticipate it attracting people who aren’t familiar with the series?
We hope so. We have them in mind too, you know. Obviously, we’re very, very aware of our fans, but we kept that in mind too. We never wanted to have in-jokes or anything. We didn’t want someone who would see it with a person next to them that knows the show and they’re laughing and they’re not. I think everything that you see in the jokes, even, anyone who’s never seen an episode is still going to enjoy it. And also, I think just in the first three minutes of the movie, you’re going to get I think within three minutes of the movie, you’re gonna say you know your characters and you know what’s at stake. So, I’m confident anyone who hasn’t seen an episode of the show will still enjoy it.
“The Bob’s Burgers Movie” is playing at Australian cinemas now.
Watch the official trailer for “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” (directed by Bernard Derriman and Loren Bouchard):
