A Day With SpongeBob SquarePants: The Movie (unproduced unauthorized direct-to-DVD mockumentary film; 2011)

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ADayWithSpongeBobSquarePantsTheMovie HQCover.jpg

The DVD cover.

Status: Undeveloped


A Day with SpongeBob SquarePants: The Movie is an undeveloped, "unauthorized" mockumentary that was to be distributed by Reagal Films and MVD. The film was cancelled, but the creator behind the film is still planning making the film through a crowd funding effort starting in September of 2016.

Premise

The Reagal Films official website gives a premise to the film:

“In this mockumentary, SpongeBob lives above ground like all Hollywood superstars. Afraid that SpongeBob is becoming old news, his boss runs a contest called 'Spend a Day with SpongeBob'. The contest makes SpongeBob the talk of the town, as thousands of kids enter to win. The lucky winner is Seth, and he is ecstatic about his day with SpongeBob. However, the day becomes a roller coaster ride as things don’t go quite the way they planned.”

Production

The creator of the film (who’s going under the name Mr. Orange for privacy reasons) wanted to create a family film that paid homage John Hughes films he liked growing up. He wrote a script and reached out to a number of producers including Jonathan Salami who’s been involved in a number of films associated with Reagal. However, after discussions with Jonathan Salami and many others, it was determined that the film would go way over the budget that would be given to him.

Mr. Orange was also hesitant to make the film out of fear of legal action from Nickelodeon or Viacom, but after talking with a lawyer, he was told that he could make the film if it was a parody and that it would also be helpful if the film is live action and acknowledges that it’s completely unofficial.

After talking with his lawyer, Mr. Orange set out to create a cover to show distributors and producers. He commissioned an illustrator named Jorge Pacheco to create a drawing that looked similar to SpongeBob’s iconic pineapple house. He also purchased a stock image of a boy in an orange shirt jumping.

After his pitch cover received positive reception, distributor Regal Films offered to help him by posting it on Amazon to see if there would be any interest via pre-orders. The film was also given a barcode while it was in pre-production which can be viewed here. https://www.barcodelookup.com/0827191000486

The production of the film however was still facing budgetary issues so Mr. Orange put the movie’s production on hold. On August 3, 2016 it was announced that a crowd funding effort would be launched in September of that year to produce the movie.


The Search Team Behind The Lost Film

Several users on The Lost Media Wiki put together a search effort to find the lost mockumentary.

The search gained the attention of the news site Gawker [1] and YouTube personality RebelTaxi, who made a notable video about it.

RebelTaxi talking about the lost film. PLEASE NOTE: The end of the video is a joke.


French website Motherboard also talked about this lost mockumentary as one of the most searched-for piece of lost media after Cracks had been found. Recently, the search has been featured on the Lost Media Chronicles and Bedhead Bernie's Animation Warehouse.

Please note that the information in these videos and articles is now outdated and was speculative regarding Reagal Films, its employees and the many other theories surrounding A Day With SpongeBob SquarePants: The Movie.

Conclusion

On May 6, 2016, Lorenzo Holley was successfully contacted. In the calls, Holley said that the film would be released through some sort of crowd funding effort. He also denied that Reagal's official website hosted malware.

On August 3, 2016, Bedhead Bernie & the group OngoingMysteries made two concluding videos for the search after contacting Mr. Orange. He clarified that Reagal Films was only a film distribution company and was not a front for a money laundering scheme of any kind. Among debunking many other theories surrounding the film's search effort, he also released 5 pages of the undeveloped film's script, all of which can be viewed in the videos below.

The conclusion video that includes a script reading and an interview with the film's creator.

A 'sister' video focusing on clarifying theories and misinformation.


Ongoing Mysteries presentation (Includes calls from Lorenzo Holley)

The original video announcing that Lorenzo Holley had been contacted