Three newSpongeBob SquarePants character spinoff movies for Paramount+ are in the works at Nickelodeon Studios, in addition to a new theatrical release about the porous resident who lives in a Pineapple-under-the-sea. The news was announced today by Brian Robbins, Chief Content Officer, Movies and Kids & Family for Paramount+ at the ViacomCBS Investor Event.
The first of Paramount+’s SpongeBobcharacter spinoff movies, which focus on different Bikini Bottom residents, will drop in 2023.
The expansion of theSpongeBob franchise follows the recent success of SpongeBob series offshoots Kamp Koralon Paramount+ andThe Patrick Star Showon Nickelodeon, the first season of which will be available soon to stream on Paramount+.
Paramount has made threeSpongeBobfeature movies, the first in 2004, which altogether have grossed close to $471M worldwide. The highest grossing installment was 2015’sThe SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Waterwhich grossed over $325M WW. However, because of the pandemic, Paramount was forced to pull The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Runfrom U.S. release in 2020. The sequel received a Canadian theatrical release in August of that year making $4.8M, while the film in the states served as the branded launch for Paramount+ in 2021. The pic’s foreign rights, except for China, were sold to Netflix.
“As we’ve known with Nickelodeon’s long-standing success, the kids and family audience is incredibly loyal, and we see that on Paramount+ as well, with kids and family ranking as one of the strongest genres on the service in terms of both engagement and subscriber acquisition,” said Robbins. “So as they stay for our shows and look for even more of them, we’re doubling down on giving them what they want by expanding the universes of the characters they love the best.”
