Development

The idea for a series about a boy with super-genius powers was first conceived in the 1980s by John A. Davis, who scripted and storyboarded a short narrative titled Runaway Rocketboy, centering around a character named Johnny Quasar (inspired by a facetious nickname that his summer co-workers had coined for him in his youth)^[3] who builds a rocket ship and runs away from his parents.^[4] Davis stated in an episode of the Nickelodeon Animation Podcast that he initially wrote the concept with the intention of creating it as a live-action film with special effects and matte shots, even going so far as to apply for a grant to fund the project, but found that getting such an investment was difficult since the film was not educational or informative.^[3] The idea laid dormant for several years until Davis came across the abandoned script while in the process of moving.^[3] Around the same time, Davis' Dallas-based studio, DNA Productions, had just begun experimenting with the use of computer animation after obtaining copies of LightWave 3D. In turn, Davis realized that the film would be fitting as a CGI film, since all of the science fiction set pieces could be entirely modeled in 3-D.^[3]

Davis, alongside studio co-founder Keith Alcorn, created a 40-second proof-of-concept demo film which depicted Johnny and his robot dog, Goddard, flying through an asteroid belt and greeting the viewers. Simultaneously, Davis and Alcorn worked to create a story bible outlining a potential television series. The demo short was shown off in 1995 at the SIGGRAPH CGI convention, where it was entered into a competition for LightWave films. The demo quickly garnered notability in the computer animation industry, receiving frequent press coverage in magazines and winning two "Wavey" awards- one for Best Character Animation and another for Best in Show. Among people who caught wind of the film was Steve Oedekerk, the founder of O Entertainment, who saw a still shot of Johnny and Goddard in a CGI magazine. Oedekerk, a strong backer of computer animation, was impressed by the characters' designs, stating in an interview that the image particularly stood out to him because it "seemed fun" compared to the mostly-photorealistic work being done with computer animation at the time.^[5] He cold-called Davis requesting to see a tape of the full short. After watching the demo, as well as seeing the show bible which Davis and Alcorn had developed, Oedekerk expressed interest in helping to pitch their concept to different networks.^[4][6]

After teaming up with O Entertainment, the company began working on developing a full-length episode for a TV series, titled The Adventures of Johnny Quasar, writing an expanded version of the original Runaway Rocket story and tweaking aspects of Johnny's design to make him look more like a child. In Fall 1995, the idea was pitched to Nickelodeon, who expressed immediate interest in the idea. Albie Hecht, the then-president of Nick, was particularly impressed, coining him to be "half Bart Simpson and half Albert Einstein," he strongly praised Johnny's blended personality as an adventurous and intelligent character and one grounded in the reality of childhood, which, according to him, made him "the perfect Nick kid".^[5] Following positive reception, Nickelodeon commissioned for a 13-minute pilot episode to be created.^[4] After several years of going through the review process, the episode began production in late 1997, and was completed in 1998. The name "Johnny Quasar" was changed at the request of Nickelodeon, who did not want the character to be confused with similarly named ones such as Jonny Quest and Captain Quazar, so Davis brainstormed other character names while walking his dog around the neighborhood block, eventually coming up with the final name, "Jimmy Neutron".^[3]

After the pilot was completed, Nickelodeon executives, who were impressed by the pilot and still enthusiastic about the show's potential, raised the prospect of creating a theatrical film to accompany the TV series, much to the surprise of Davis and his team at the studio. During the initial pitch to Nickelodeon, Oedekerk had highlighted the idea that using computer animation would allow the same models and assets to be reused between both a film and a TV show, an idea which Nick held strong faith in.^[4] Davis further suggested that the feature film be created first, since the characters being modeled could be created at a higher quality than they would have with a TV budget. Although Nick was worried that it would be more difficult to attract a movie-going audience without the TV show to build an install base for the series, these concerns were answered with a series of short TV interstitials which would begin airing in order to build up hype for the upcoming film.^[4][6]

With a budget of roughly $30 million, production of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius was greenlit in Fall 1999, and work began on a script for the film.^[7] Production officially started in February 2000 under the direction of Davis. In order to speed up the pace of work for a feature film, the company's staff count was considerably increased from 30 to around 150 employees, and the studio's workspace was also reformed in order to fit such a team of filmmakers.^[5] The film was completed in 24 months, roughly half that in which most other CGI films were completed.^[4][6]

Writing

The screenplay for Jimmy Neutron was written by Davis and Oedekerk, as well as Rugrats staff writers David N. Weiss and J. David Stem.^[6] In creating the many ideas in Jimmy Neutron, Davis and Oedekerk thought back to their childhoods, trying to think about "what a kid would create if he had the ability to create any kind of gadget."^[4] The film was largely inspired by Davis' own love of science fiction which he had since childhood, drawing influence from various sources including Thunderbirds and Ray Harryhausen's stop motion work. Oedekerk's 6-year-old daughter, Zoe, came up with the idea for "burp soda", which ultimately appeared in the movie as one of Jimmy's many inventions.^[4] According to Davis, the Ultralord-obsessed Sheen Estevez was inspired by Davis' own love of collecting.^[3] Sheen was initially intended to be Japanese, as he was named after the nickname of a Japanese employee who had worked for Davis, but the filmmakers had trouble finding a suitable voice actor of Japanese descent. Incidentally, they changed the character's nationality to Mexican after opening the role to a broader category and eventually settling on Mexican-American stand-up comic Jeff Garcia.^[3][8]

Animation

Jimmy Neutron was the first computer-animated film to be created entirely using commercial animation programs rather than proprietary software, with most animation done using both Lightwave and project:messiah.^[4] Characters were first modeled in Lightwave, after which they were rigged and animated in Messiah. Texture painting was done via Adobe Photoshop, while compositing work was completed in Maya Fusion.^[5] In addition to serving as executive producer, Alcorn was the film's lead character designer, and created actively simplistic and cartoonish designs in order to avoid overcomplicating production. To animate crowd scenes, methods of simplification were used to make animation less time-consuming: characters that were farther from the camera had less articulation, and animators would duplicate the same characters, offset them to different areas, and change their body parts to differentiate them. One particular scene shows a crowd of 6000 Yolkians, each of which uses one of 30 distinct animation loops.^[5]

According to Davis, the character models were intentionally given a "sculpted, graphic look," both to avoid making them look overly realistic and to circumvent the prospect of having to deal with simulating cloth or hair.^[5] The over-the-top character designs, in turn, influenced the film world's aesthetic (e.g. cars were modeled to be able to fit the characters' stylistically large heads).^[5] Off-the-shelf shaders were favored over ones which created more photorealistic lighting in order to maintain a cartoonish appearance throughout.^[5]

Casting

Nancy Cartwright, Pamela Adlon and E. G. Daily were all considered for the role of Jimmy Neutron before Debi Derryberry was cast for the film and subsequent series. The film was Derryberry's biggest acting role at the time, as previously she had mostly provided minor roles in films and TV shows.^[9]

Soundtrack

Critical response

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius received generally positive reviews from critics and audiences. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 74% based on 76 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The critics' consensus reads: "What Jimmy Neutron lacks in computer animation, it makes up for in charm and cleverness."^[19] According to Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100 based on 21 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[20] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.^[21]

Rita Kempley of The Washington Post praised the film, saying that "this little charmer both celebrates and kids the corny conventions of family sitcoms".^[22] Nell Minow of Common Sense Media enjoyed the "stylish 3-D computer animation, good characters", giving the film 3 out of 5 stars.^[23] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave this film a grade of "B+", calling it "a lickety-split, madly packed, roller-coaster entertainment that might almost have been designed to make you scared of how much smarter your kids are than you".^[24] Paul Tatara of CNN called the film "the most delightfully original children's film of 2001".^[25] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, saying that "it doesn't have the little in-jokes that make Shrek and Monsters, Inc. fun for grown-ups. But adults who appreciate the art of animation may enjoy the look of the picture".^[26]

Box office

The film was financially successful, grossing $13,833,228 on its opening weekend in third place behind The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Ocean's Eleven and ended up with a total of $80,936,232 domestically, and the film did better overseas grossing $22,056,304 which made a total of $102,992,536 worldwide. It had a budget of roughly $30 million. It is one of only twenty feature films to be released in over 3,000 theaters and still improve on its box office performance in its second weekend, increasing 8.7% from $13,832,786 to $15,035,649.^[27]

Awards

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius was nominated for the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, losing to Shrek. It was the first release from Nickelodeon Movies to receive an Academy Award nomination.

Cancelled sequel and possible reboot

In February 2002, a sequel was reported in development for a summer 2004 release. Producer Albie Hecht reported to The Los Angeles Times that the sequel "would be made on the same budget as the first, but with a new batch of inventions and adventures in Jimmy's town of Retroville."^[28] On June 20, 2002, The Hollywood Reporter reported that writer Kate Boutilier had signed a writing deal with Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Pictures to write a sequel to the film, but the sequel never materialized.^[29] The film was cancelled because the writers could not agree on a story and Alcorn later stated in an interview that "once the TV series came out, there wasn't a lot of incentive to make a movie when fans could simply watch Jimmy Neutron for free at home."^[30]

In 2016, director John A. Davis stated that he has a story for a Jimmy Neutron reboot feature that he would like to make, but he is waiting for the "right situation" to make it.^[31]

When asked about a reboot in 2020, Rob Paulsen stated "Well, I've got to tell you, man. I go all over the world when we don't have the coronavirus, and people love Carl. They love Carl. I don't think it would be a bad thing at all to reboot Jimmy Neutron. I think that's one of those shows that a lot of people would love to see again. It was very good. Really smart. That wouldn't surprise me."^[32]