Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

In Piqua, Ohio, George Beard and Harold Hutchins are two fourth-grade friends and next-door neighbors who often bring joy to their school, Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, by excessively pranking the staff at the school, especially their cruel principal, Mr. Benjamin "Benny" Krupp, which puts them at odds with him. The duo also creates comic books about a superhero named Captain Underpants, a character who has superpowers yet merely wears underwear and a cape. They sell these to their schoolmates through a comic company called "Treehouse Comix Inc.", located in their treehouse. George and Harold's pranks come to an apparent end when they are caught tampering with a toilet invention, the Turbo Toilet 2000, made by their tattletale classmate, Melvin Sneedly. Mr. Krupp decides to put the boys in separate classes, believing that he can end their friendship with it.

To prevent this, George hypnotizes Mr. Krupp with a "3-D Hypno-Ring" he received out of a cereal box, the boys notice that Mr. Krupp bears a resemblance to Captain Underpants and command him to be so. The boys soon learn the severity of this when Captain Underpants begins causing trouble around Piqua and thus decide to take him to their treehouse. There, they discover that they can turn Captain Underpants back into Mr. Krupp by splashing water on him and back into Captain Underpants by snapping their fingers. Realizing that Mr. Krupp will continue trying to separate them, they decide to settle with Captain Underpants yet insist that he be dressed up as Mr. Krupp under the pretense of a "secret identity", to which Captain Underpants agrees. His sudden personality change even manages to attract the attention and affection of the school's shy lunch lady, Edith.

Just when George and Harold believe that their troubles have ended, an odd scientist named Professor Pee-Pee Diarrheastein Poopypants Esq. visits Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, whom Captain Underpants (still disguised as Mr. Krupp) hires to be the new science teacher, but George and Harold are suspicious due to his short-tempered and violent behavior. As it turns out, Poopypants is seeking to get rid of laughter altogether due to people never taking him seriously for years because of his name.

With Captain Underpants as the principal, the school is a more lively place, with a fair being set up in the yard. However, a rainstorm occurs and Captain Underpants turns back into Mr. Krupp, who finally finishes the paperwork to put George and Harold into separate classes. Meanwhile, Poopypants recruits Melvin into his plan, as he has no sense of humor and does not find his name funny. Soon, Poopypants tries to take over the town with a giant version of Melvin's Turbo Toilet 2000, fueled by the school cafeteria's toxic leftovers left out by Edith and uses Melvin's brain as the power source to a zombie-ray to turn the children into dull and humorless zombies. Captain Underpants tries to stop them, but due to having no actual superpowers, he's effortlessly defeated and thrown into the toxic pool. George and Harold are captured and turned into zombies but are able to escape when their laughter from a joke that made them friends in kindergarten overloads the zombie-ray, which damages the Turbo Toilet 2000's computer and returns the kids to normal. Upon consuming the toxic leftovers, Captain Underpants acquires superpowers and, with George and Harold's help, defeats and shrinks Poopypants, who escapes on a bee shortly thereafter.

Knowing that they can't control Captain Underpants forever, George and Harold destroy the Hypno Ring in order to permanently change him back into Mr. Krupp. Feeling that Mr. Krupp would be a lot nicer if he had friends, the boys set him and Edith up on a date, making Mr. Krupp have a change of heart and return the comics he confiscated from George and Harold. However, the toxic waste from the Turbo Toilet 2000 transforms all the toilets at a scrap yard into an army of Talking Toilets, which attack the restaurant where Mr. Krupp and Edith are dining. Upon snapping his fingers accidentally, Mr. Krupp once again becomes Captain Underpants, carrying George and Harold away to help them fight the Toilets to Edith's surprise and admiration.

In a mid-credits scene, George and Harold realize that Mr. Krupp's secretary Miss Anthrope, whom they put on the phone via a false competition for $1 billion, has been on the phone for the entire film, prompting them to shut off the call to her dismay.

• Ed Helms as Mr. Benjamin "Benny" Krupp / Captain Underpants, the grumpy and mean principal of Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, who gets hypnotized into becoming the superhero created by George and Harold, in order to stop him from putting them in separate classes.[7]
• Kevin Hart as George Beard, a fourth-grade student who is best friends with Harold who make comic books, George writes stories while Harold illustrates them. George is typically calmer in tough situations.
• Thomas Middleditch as Harold Hutchins, a fourth-grade student who is best friends with George. Harold illustrates books while George writes the stories. Harold is cautious and worrisome in tough situations. Harold is friendly with a fondness for dolphins[7][8]
• Nick Kroll as Professor Pee-Pee Diahreeahstein Poopypants Esq, a ruthless and humorless German-accented mad scientist and the film's antagonist, who plots to take over the world to get rid of all laughter after years of being constantly disparaged for his name.[7]
• Jordan Peele as Melvin Sneedly, George and Harold's nerdy enemy, and a child prodigy who becomes Professor Poopypants' sidekick due to his lack of a sense of humor.[7]
• Kristen Schaal as Edith, the shy school lunch lady and the love interest of Mr Krupp who was created exclusively for this film, partially based on the book series character of the secretary Miss Edith Anthrope, who is separately featured in the film in a minor capacity.[8]
• Dee Dee Rescher as Ms. Ribble, a 4th-grade teacher (and George's new teacher when Mr. Krupp separates the boys).
• Brian Posehn as Mr. Rected, the guidance counselor (and Harold's new teacher when Mr. Krupp separates the boys).
• Mel Rodriguez as Mr. Fyde, the science teacher who gets fired by Mr. Krupp and is replaced by Professor Poopypants.
• David Soren as Tommy, a boy who is seen frequently throughout the movie climbing into his own locker and shutting the locker door behind him.
• Susan Fitzker as Mrs. Dayken, George and Harold's kindergarten teacher who unintentionally made them laugh by mentioning Uranus.
• Lynnanne Zager as Mrs. Beard, George's mother. In the movie, only her legs are seen, unlike in the books and the Netflix Original series.
• Tiffany Lauren Bennicke as Sad Girl
• James Ryan as Mime, who Captain Underpants accidentally hit in the face to "free" him, after discovering that he is "trapped in an invisible box-like prison".
• Leslie David Baker as Officer McPiggly, a police officer who confronts Captain Underpants after he stops a bank robbery.
• Sugar Lyn Beard as Goody Two-Shoes Girl
• Lesley Nicol as a Nobel Moderator
• Chris Miller as a Nobel Audience Member
• Coco Soren as Balloon Girl

DreamWorks' interest in the film rights to the Captain Underpants series dates back to when the first installment was published in 1997, but creator Dav Pilkey did not want to sell them. Early pitches for an adaptation included video games, animated and live-action films, an animated series, and a live-action series. To persuade him, DreamWorks gave Pilkey a tour around the studio with everyone wearing underpants over their trousers, which made him laugh.[9] In October 2011, his representatives indicated Pilkey was ready, and DreamWorks Animation won the rights in an auction.[10] In October 2013, Rob Letterman was announced as director and Nicholas Stoller as scriptwriter.[11] The two had previously worked together on the film Gulliver's Travels. In January 2014, the cast was announced. Ed Helms joined as Mr Krupp a.k.a. Captain Underpants, Kevin Hart as George Beard, Thomas Middleditch as Harold Hutchins, Nick Kroll as the "insidious villain" Professor Poopypants, and Jordan Peele as George and Harold's "nerdy nemesis" Melvin Sneedly.[7]

Director David Soren screened the film at the 2017 Annecy International Animation Film Festival.[12]

In 2014, DreamWorks Animation announced a January 2017 release date.[13] Following DreamWorks Animation's reorganization in early 2015, the studio announced that the film would be produced outside of the studio's pipeline at a significantly lower cost.[14] It was instead animated at Mikros Image in Montreal, Canada, and at Technicolor Animation Productions in France, and therefore looks identical to Pilkey's original drawing style, as well as differently than most of DWA's films.[15] A month later, Letterman left the project but came back as an executive producer, and David Soren, the director of Turbo, entered talks to direct the film.[16]

During production, Pilkey got to work closely with Soren. He was relieved that Soren was directing since he was a fan of Turbo. In an interview with Los Angeles Times, Pilkey said: "Once I met David, it was like a huge load fell off my back; I was like, 'I don't even have to think about this anymore. Just send me a couple of tickets to the premiere.'"[9] Commenting back, Soren said, "In a way, the controversy over the books ended up being liberating for the film. Normally on an animated movie, you're trying to appeal to every possible demographic, and often that results in your content being watered down a little bit. Obviously, we hope we get as wide of an audience as possible. But it's likely that if people have issues with the books they may have issues with the movie too, and we didn't feel like we needed to waste a lot of time trying to rope them in. It allowed us to make the purest version of the movie."[9] Soren also said that he took inspiration from John Hughes films. In an interview with MovieFreak, he mentioned,

... we actually looked at a lot of John Hughes movies for inspiration, like Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Weird Science. John Hughes had this great knack for making comedies like this. Both of those movies have great friendships at the center of them. He seemed to be able to tap into the voice of a generation. They're very funny, all of his movies, but they are also poignant and they actually have meaningful things to say, which I think is why they have stood the test of time. So there's timelessness to his work that we were attempting to go for with this.[17]

Although it is a CG-animated feature, the film includes scenes that are traditionally animated, flash animated, a short cutout animation segment, and a sock puppet sequence created by Screen Novelties.

On December 12, 2017, Netflix and DreamWorks Animation Television announced that there would be an animated series to follow-up the film, entitled The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants.[47][48] It premiered on the streaming service on July 13, 2018,[49] and is executive-produced by Peter Hastings.

On December 9, 2020, DreamWorks Animation announced that a feature film adaptation of Dog Man (another one of George and Harold's comic creations) is currently in the works by director Peter Hastings, the showrunner for The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants.[50]

• Zahed, Ramin (2017), The Art of Captain Underpants The First Epic Movie (1st ed.), Titan Books, ISBN 978-1785652905

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