The Bob's Burgers Movie Had A Similar Struggle As The Simpsons Movie [Exclusive]

When a sinkhole opens up in front of your burger joint, it's an adventure worthy of a movie. "The Bob's Burgers Movie" brings the long-running animated series, which just aired its season 12 finale this week, to the big screen for the first time. The movie is in theaters this Friday, so if you're going through "Bob's Burgers" withdrawals already, you won't have to wait long to see it.

/Film's BJ Colangelo recently spoke with series creator Loren Bouchard and his co-director and co-writer for "The Bob's Burgers Movie," Bernard Derriman and Nora Smith. Bouchard and Smith are also busy serving as co-creators with Josh Gad of the series "Central Park," which employs the same animation style as "Bob's Burgers," similar to how the recently revived "Futurama" mirrors the style of "The Simpsons."

"The Simpsons Movie" is actually a comparison that Derriman himself made when talking about "Bob's Burger's" and the challenges it faced on the journey to its impending feature-film debut. Derriman said:

"It's funny because I remember 15 years ago, or whenever it was when they made 'The Simpsons Movie,' I would hear them all the time in interviews saying how hard it was for them to make that movie because they were making the series at the same time. And I remember just hearing it, just going like, 'God, why are they whining about this so much? Just go and hire some more people. You're in Hollywood, you find some other artists.' But when it came to, it's like, 'Holy s***. Yeah, this is really hard.' And because you find the best people to work on the show, and the best ones, they all rise to the top, and you want them to be running the show, but it's hard to get that many talented people."

Bouchard also mentioned the pandemic as another challenge that "The Bob's Burgers Movie" faced. The voice of Bob himself, H. Jon Benjamin, has spoken previously about how the creative team was forced to work from home. For Derriman, the show's team set a high standard for the movie. He continued:

"To then suddenly take what could be half of them off the show is just not possible. You want all of them. You don't want the show to suffer. So that was really hard. Plus, as you mentioned, 'Central Park.' We have a whole lot of other shows, we had so much going on, and it was the hardest thing, I think, about this whole project."

They say art is never finished, only abandoned, but if there was any benefit to having "The Bob's Burgers Movie" delayed due to Covid, it was that it allowed the team more time to work on it and get everything to their liking. Smith also highlighted the newfound freedom that the movie represented, insofar as they were no longer dealing with the same tight TV schedule. She said:

"I feel like the movie was the thing where we could ease into a movie meeting and be like, up until the end, this isn't something that has to air on Sunday. So we get to do everything we want and make it exactly how we want. So it was sort of nice to take a break from putting on shows that had to be on a really strict schedule and being able to be like, 'Okay, the movie is a happy place where we get to make it exactly how we want.' Because none of us like to give up a thing until it's ripped from our hands."

Bouchard likened the "Bob's Burgers" TV series to a "foxhole," and not just because it airs on Fox. Also, if the word "pressureful" wasn't in your vocabulary before, you may find occasion to use it after this. Bouchard said:

"The meetings where we got to talk about the movie, in a way, were this little reward for the foxhole that we were in doing the series, which is, production for a TV series is pressureful. And so it was nice. The light came through the windows in a different way in the movie meetings. It was just a little more air you could breathe. At least, like you said, in the early days. Then it got pressureful again."

In "The Bob's Burgers Movie," per the official synopsis, "a ruptured water main creates an enormous sinkhole right in front of Bob's Burgers, blocking the entrance indefinitely and ruining the Belchers' plans for a successful summer. While Bob and Linda struggle to keep the business afloat, the kids try to solve a mystery that could save their family's restaurant."

In addition to the aforementioned H. Jon Benjamin, "The Bob's Burger's Movie" features the voices of Kristen Schaal, John Roberts, Dan Mintz, Eugene Mirman, Larry Murphy, Zach Galifianakis, and Kevin Kline. The movie is in theaters on May 27, 2022.