SpongeBob Hits the Big Screen Again in “Search for SquarePants” with Mark Hamill as the Flying Dutchman – Trailer Released

SpongeBob SquarePants is heading back to theaters in a brand new animated adventure called The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants. The movie, from Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies, just got its first trailer, and fans are already excited for what’s coming.

This will be SpongeBob’s fourth movie since the character first showed up on Nickelodeon back in 1999. In this new film, SpongeBob takes off on a journey across the deep ocean to face off against one of the show’s classic villains, the Flying Dutchman. But there’s something different this time: instead of his usual voice actor Brian Doyle-Murray, the Flying Dutchman will be voiced by none other than Mark Hamill.

The rest of the voice cast includes all the usual faces (and voices) that fans know and love. Tom Kenny returns as SpongeBob, Bill Fagerbakke is back as Patrick, Rodger Bumpass is Squidward, Clancy Brown plays Mr. Krabs, Carolyn Lawrence is Sandy, and Mr. Lawrence returns as Plankton. Joining them are new voices like George Lopez, Ice Spice, Arturo Castro, Sherry Cola, and Regina Hall. The new actors are expected to play fresh characters in the story.

One big change from the show is the animation style. The cartoon is usually 2D, but this new movie is fully 3D and made for theaters. This isn’t totally new for SpongeBob fans, Sponge Out of Water in 2015 and Sponge on the Run in 2020 also used 3D animation. So did the recent spinoff films Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie and Plankton: The Movie, though those were Netflix releases.

This time around, Derek Drymon is directing his first feature film. He’s worked on SpongeBob before as an animator and writer. The story was created by longtime writers Marc Ceccarelli, Kaz, and Pam Brady, with a script by Brady and Matt Lieberman. Brady also helped produce the film along with Lisa Stewart and Aaron Dem.

Even though SpongeBob has shown up in some smaller streaming films lately, this will be his first big movie in theaters in over 10 years. The last time SpongeBob had a theatrical release was Sponge Out of Water, which opened in 2015 and made $55 million in its first weekend. Sponge on the Run was meant for theaters but ended up going straight to Paramount+ because of the pandemic.

Paramount announced that The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants will officially hit theaters on December 19. It looks like this one is shaping up to be another fun ride under the sea. As one fan said after seeing the trailer, “It feels like SpongeBob is finally back where he belongs, on the big screen.”