WTF Happened to TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE?

i want you to hit me as hard as you can in 2004 the world was in turmoil the u.s was still reeling from the worst terrorist attack in its history followed by the war with iraq things just seemed a bit too heavy films like united 93 and world trade center were in the pipeline but no film at that point had dealt with the after effects of 9 11. enter trey parker and matt stone the creators of south park who would go on to make one of the first films to tackle a post-9 11 world and they did it with puppets much like the studio probably thought when they gave the green light to team america world police how difficult could it be to make a marionette movie well tighten your strings while we examine what the [ __ ] happened to this movie [Music] trey parker and matt stone were just two struggling college students in boulder colorado who shared a love of monty python and provocative humor when they shot their first film cannibal the musical about the real-life man-eating prospector alfred packer made for a hundred thousand dollars the movie would go on to become an underground hit thanks to notorious cult label troma entertainment after the success of cannibal the duo packed up and moved from their quiet town to the traffic ridden world of los angeles parker and stone pitched several projects but none of them ever got off the ground so again the pair took matters into their own hands and made orgasm a movie about a mormon missionary who mistakenly becomes a porn star the film partially funded by a japanese porn company premiered at the toronto film festival where it was bought by independent distributor october films due to the subject matter and its independent distributor the mpaa slapped the film with an unmarketable nc-17 rating without any explanation this would be the first run-in the duo had with the mpaa but certainly not the last during this time an animated short film parker and stone had made in college circulated around hollywood head of fox studios brian grayden was a fan of the short and he commissioned the team to create another animated short film for him to send to friends and family for the holidays this led to the creation of jesus vs santa or it's more commonly known the spirit of christmas with the town abuzz over what would become the first ever viral video parker and stone were able to take several pitch meetings for a potential tv show then fledgling cable channel comedy central ponied up three hundred thousand dollars for their pitch and south park was born south park was an instant phenomenon pulling in over 150 million dollars in merchandise sales alone in the first year with that success the next logical step was a movie dealing with a major studio like paramount on the south park movie was a bit of an adjustment for the creators paramount would consistently push the duo to make the film pg-13 saying that rating would bring in more money but parker and stone wouldn't budge the pair had several conflicts with the mpaa on this film most notably with the original title south park all hell breaks loose they then changed the title to south park bigger longer and uncut which the mpaa curiously had no problems with despite its phallic implication the movie would maintain its nc-17 rating until just two weeks prior to release when paramount called up the mpaa and simply said we really need this film to be r without any edits the rating was changed this always rubbed parker and stone the wrong way because with orgasmo the mpaa hit it with an nc17 that was the end of it the south park movie would go on to be a critical and commercial success even earning a best original song oscar nomination for blame canada which was performed on stage at the ceremony by the legendary robin williams true to their smart ass ways parker and stone showed up to the oscars wearing dresses and tripping on lsd as parker revealed years later and all that success finally brings us to team america world police when movies have behind the scenes drama it generally stems from clashes of ego or creative differences or acts of god that interfere with production with team america the biggest problem they had was quite simply no one thought making a marionette movie would be so [ __ ] hard after the challenges parker and stone had making the south park movie they were initially content with just sticking to the tv show but while bored one day trey parker came across old episodes of the jerry anderson super mario nation series thunderbirds parker found the show to be comically bad and decided to inquire about the rights to the show only to learn that star trek the next generation's jonathan frakes was actually about to make a live-action version of the property but the wheels had been set in motion parker now had a desire to make a full-on marionette movie one day while working on south park he read in the trades that 20th century fox had bought roland emerick's disaster movie the day after tomorrow based on just a one-line pitch about global warming parker brought it to stone and they both laughed at the absurdity of it not long after that parker was actually able to get a copy of the script for the day after tomorrow finding it to be unintentionally hilarious he and stone came up with the idea to do a shot-for-shot version of this script using puppets they wanted to call it the day after the day after tomorrow and release it one day after the day after tomorrow hit theaters but when they looked into this plan they were immediately smacked with reality there was absolutely no legal way they could do it but they were dead set on making a feature-length movie using only puppets and now they had their target bombastic action movies like the day after tomorrow and jerry bruckheimer productions with additional influence from the 1982 cheese classic megaforce and its quintessentially goofy flying motorcycle sequence paramount initially and justifiably expressed concern at the box-office viability of an r-rated puppet movie but they came on board to finance the film first parker and stone brought in their south park movie writing partner pam brady then knowing how different this movie would be from anything they had made before they've realized they'd need an experienced director of photography enter bill pope the genius responsible for lensing the matrix trilogy and sam raimi's spider-man 2. pope had told his agents that he was tired of working on big-budget green screen spectacles and after meeting with parker and stone he found what he was looking for to craft the puppets parker and stone sought out the renowned kyoto brothers famous for their work on killer clowns from outer space and critters along with john favreau's elf the brothers had worked with parker and stone before on an episode of their tv show that's my bush and quickly joined up but once they started working on the film they realized this was going to be much tougher than any film they had done before each puppet was meticulously crafted with nearly 100 complex mechanical heads and 80 bodies needed to portray the 300 characters that would be seen on screen production on team america world police began in may 2004 with a planned release date just five months later in october 2004. parker and stone had intended to shoot for seven weeks total breaking in the middle to go work on season eight of south park as the saying goes the road to hell is paved with good intentions prior to shooting they did a rehearsal to see how things would go and learned that to actually be able to make this movie they would have to construct several overhead bridges for the puppeteers to work as well as create holes in the ground for additional puppeteers and light setups the seven weeks they had allotted for shooting was nowhere near enough time forcing them to nearly double the schedule once filming commenced the crew had grown exponentially to around 200 people with each puppet requiring four different puppeteers for various maneuvers they were also having issues with the limitations of what the marionettes could actually do which required the script to be constantly rewritten originally the script also featured more jokes but parker realized that the jokes weren't really landing and the true comedy came from these puppet characters taking everything super seriously another unforeseen issue was the camera setups due to the height of the puppets and the vast off-camera walkways for the puppeteers they couldn't shoot any low angles as the camera would reveal there was no ceiling they also couldn't shoot high angles because the strings on the marionettes would stand out more on camera the puppets also couldn't walk realistically which meant blocking each shot took much longer to figure out with some shots taking upwards of three hours for the camera to first be set up then the puppeteers figuring out the movements not only were parker and stone dealing with the nightmare logistics of making a feature-length marionette movie during the day but at night they would be hard at work on south park and at this time they had also started working with future double egot winner robert lopez on the play the book of mormon with all of that work being done simultaneously matt stone would later proclaim that making team america was the absolute worst time of his life saying he would work 20 hours a day take sleeping pills to go to bed and then drink coffee to stay awake in an interview with entertainment weekly at the time stone said i want this movie to be done so bad it's all i think about every second of every day [ __ ] this movie i want to go home parker echoed those sentiments saying in an interview you could threaten to kill my family and i would not make another puppet movie making matters even worse parker stone and producer scott rudin were essentially making the movie for no pay in order to get the initial green light the trio forfeited their upfront salaries when the budget ballooned they were forced to give up any back-end deals it seems they were right freedom isn't free the original concept for the film was about a group of actors taking control of the white house in order to sell out america to the rest of the world but once america entered into the iraq war that changed and the filmmakers saw an opportunity to skewer the self-serious actors that were being interviewed on news programs about the war rather than actual foreign policy leaders no one was safe from their wrath not even south park superfan and guest actor george clooney parker said we weren't going to be hypocritical and say well let's not pick on george he's our friend we're like nope [ __ ] you george clooney later commented that he would have been offended if he was not in the movie even the normally confrontational alec baldwin took his ribbing with pride and says that even to this day if someone yells at him you are worthless eric he responds back at you kim even matt damon net damon the celebrity who's probably had the most lasting impact on his name since team america's release has taken it all in good fun at first he didn't quite understand why his character was only capable of saying his name in that particular way but he was eventually amused when parker later said that damon's character was meant to be smart and charming but the filmmakers realized the finished puppet looked mentally deficient so they changed the character to say only those two infamous words matt damon of course not everyone was pleased with their portrayal prior to the movie's release sean penn sent parker and stone a letter berating them and signing it a sincere [ __ ] you john penn the pair found it hilarious because everything penn wrote in the letter was inadvertently almost verbatim what his puppet says in the movie the one public figure parodied in the film that the creators would love to know if he even saw the movie was north korean dictator and noted cinephile kim jong-il who got the last laugh by taking that knowledge with him to the grave i will be back and let's not forget the movie's amazing songs parker grew up with a love of musical theater and that admiration is infused in everything he does in team america the music becomes another way to ridicule the cheesy melodrama of big budget action films with their power ballads and rah-rah spirit songs like montage the end of an act and of course america [ __ ] yeah all feel like songs from huge blockbuster movies yet feature lyrics like i miss you more than michael bay missed the mark when he made pearl harbor as with all studio movies the executives get to see the first cut so they can get a feel for marketing and witness the product of their investment at the studio screening for team america when the lights dimmed and the film began playing the first shot is of a crappy looking marionette against a horribly drawn background upon seeing this one studio executive allegedly shouted they [ __ ] us of course the shot then pulls back to reveal a fully realized marionette world parker said he filmed the opening that way specifically to mess with the studio executives like all their films team america was originally hit with an nc-17 rating even in doll form the mbaa still has problems with sex scenes and movies parker would edit and resubmit the film nine times before the mpaa lowered the film to an r rating in total only 45 seconds of footage was removed but anyone who's seen the unrated cut knows those 45 seconds are magnificently raunchy parker and stone would later admit they made the sex scene way more graphic in order to distract the mpaa from the rest of the film noting that the mpaa cares more about one second of a sex scene than they do about someone getting their head blown off team america world police was released on october 15 2004 where it opened in third place behind shark tale and friday night lights the movie finished with 51 million dollars worldwide on a budget that had risen to 32 million critical reception for the film was fairly positive with most critics appreciating the satirical takedown of hollywood culture and aggressive foreign tactics while others including roger ebert didn't seem to really get the joke over the years the film has gained cult status with many people discovering the unrated cut on dvd quentin tarantino has listed it as one of his favorite films released since 1992 and several publications have listed it in the top 10 funniest movies ever made since team america's release trey parker and matt stone have become tony and grammy award winners for their stage play the book of mormon which has grossed over 500 million dollars to date making it one of the most successful broadway musicals of all time even bigger than cats and south park continues to be one of the smartest and most relevant shows on tv team america world police may have gained notoriety as the movie with puppet fornication or a puking marionette that earned internet meme status but it's much more than that a takedown of self-serious celebrities a scathing statement on america's foreign policy and a demonstration of sexual positions that even the kama sutra might have overlooked parker and stone haven't dared to make another big screen movie since their excruciating experience on team america but it seems after 17 years they may be bringing that moratorium to an end they're working on bringing the book of mormon to the big screen and parker has recently said that they have really killer ideas for other films that are unrelated to south park finally we might get another trey parker matt stone feature film [ __ ] yeah thank you for watching if you like what you see please subscribe to our joe blow videos channel tell your friends who like this sort of content and turn on the bell to receive notifications for all our latest videos we are an independent company and we appreciate your support you

Channel: JoBlo Originals

Views: 581,646

Keywords: joblo videos, joblo, wtf happened to, wtf happened to this celebrity, wtf happened to this movie, wtf, the best movie you never saw, awfully good movies, joblo originals, team america world police, team america, team america matt damon, team america montage, trey parker, matt stone, south park, team america: world police, team america aids, team america fight scene, pam brady, team america world police song, team america song, scott rudin

Id: JNJRsHASqvU

Length: 15min 27sec (927 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 05 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Ecko_87]

Yeah 2021 really needs a sequel