Rickey the Wicked Witch of the City

Rickey the Wicked Witch of the City is a 2002 American animated supernatural dark fantasy adventure film directed by Brad Bird based on the animated series Rickey the Wicked. The film is directed by Brad Bird, who also created the series and features the voices of Candi Milo, Charlie Adler, June Foray, B.J. Ward, Tony Jay, Scott Menville, Frank Welker, Desirée Goyette, Jim Cummings, and Ashley Johnson reprising their roles from the series along with newcomers Jodi Benson, Dan Aykroyd, with Richard Kind, and John Goodman.

Set months after the finale of the series, Rickey who masters his supernatural powers, must stop Osran Gnash an evil witch god from destroying and taking over his town after discovering an evil spell that can give him immortal power.

Rickey the Wicked was initially set to be released as a direct-to-video film, but was instead released theatrically on October 18, 2002 by Warner Bros. Pictures, and received generally positive reviews from critics praising the action, voice acting, and humor. The film was nonetheless a box office success, outperforming it's projections grossing over $313 million against its $60 million budget which made it at the time, the highest grossing animated TV show adaptation. It also served as the series finale of the original Rickey the Wicked series, as no further episodes were made to continue from where it left off. Through syndication and television broadcasting as well as internet popularity, the film has gained a cult following.

Due to the newer found popularity of the franchise, Warner Bros. greenlit a revival/continuation series in 2020 along with a direct sequel with the former being released in 2024 while the latter has a slated release for October 13, 2023 in the United States.

Plot
Osran Gnash is a sour and weak older witch who prays for power to heal his sister while Grinsot is a legendary witch who's magic is stronger than anyone else in the universe while also being Gnash's older and more legendary brother. After their sister Lima, who is a former sorcerer of all evil, passes away from her powers being taken away from her, leading him to go to magical witch leader Nevar's king. After Nevar dismisses and jokes about the weakness of Gnash, Nevar later threatens to take the life away from Gnash. However, Gnash intervenes and chokes Nevar to death then finds his secret spell book. With this spell book, he casts the spell of Darkness, which is called the Diviula. The spell of Diviula gives Gnash unlimited powers while giving him more strength and giving him more magical powers. These powers also corrupt Gnash causing him to attack his brother and later knocks out his brother Grinsnot while trapping him back into the Nethercoffin.

Rickey who is now close with cheerleader Becky Williams is nervous to ask her out on a date and is teased by Noah until he gives advice for him. Suddenly, Beck Diablo teleports to Rickey's school to tell him that Nevar is now dead and he has to find out about the disappearance where Rickey initially brushes this off until Beck convinces him to find out the mystery and protect the safety of the earth. Merril and Wade initially disapproves Rickey going to the leader's palace but he later sneaks out anyways. Bringing Noah, Becky, and Cerberus with the help of his grandfather, Rickey and his friends go to the leader's palace.

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Cast

 * Candi Milo as Rickey Diablo / Rickey the Wicked, an apathetic yet smart teenage witch who trains to become powerful.
 * Charlie Adler as Wade Diablo, the father of Rickey.
 * June Foray as Grandma Diablo, the grandmother of Rickey.
 * B.J. Ward as Merril Diablo, Rickey's mother.
 * Tony Jay as Beck Diablo, the grandfather of Rickey.
 * Scott Menville as Noah Wilcox, Rickey's mortal best friend who is aware that Rickey is a witch.
 * Frank Welker as Cerberus, Rickey's pet black cat who can talk.
 * Desirée Goyette as Becky Williams, a teenage cheerleader and Rickey's love interest.
 * Jim Cummings as Din, Rickey's pet dog who can talk.
 * Ashley Johnson as Wendy Diablo, the younger witch sister of Rickey.
 * Brad Dourif as Osran Gnash, an evil genocidal witch god.
 * Willem Dafoe as Grinsnot, the proclaimed "legendary witch" who is apathetic but helps Rickey.
 * Jodi Benson as Lima, the sister of Grinsnot and Gnash who is ill.
 * Dan Aykroyd as Nevar, the ruler of all witches.
 * Richard Kind as Dimbo, a short yet self-centered mortal who serves at the servant for Nevar (later Osran Gnash) after being kidnapped by Nevar.
 * John Goodman as Bram Dred, a depressed troll who is forced to fight in order to stop his people from being killed.
 * Chris O'Donnell as Alastair Razor, the slacker cousin of Grinsnot.
 * Brad Bird as Lucky, an ordinary dog who mutates into a hobgoblin.
 * Jason Marsden and Bob Bergen as Lenny and Teddy Rose, Rickey's twin neighbors who hate witches.
 * Jeff Bennett as:
 * Lenny Wilds, Rickey's nerd classmate
 * Bitzer, a cocky teenage witch
 * Billy West as Terry, Blind black Cat, Dorkus

Production
Rumors about a possible Rickey the Wicked film started since the beginning of the series. Creator Brad Bird wrote a treatment for a Rickey feature film midway through the series' fifth season production in late 1994. It was to center on a dilemma for Rickey, but it was never pitched. However, in 1998, Bird and the rest of the animation team began working on a feature-length film based on Rickey by putting their finances into Script Development. In September 1999, Warner Bros. officially announced that Rickey the Wicked was to star in his own feature film.

Animation
The financial failure of Warner's and Bird's previous animated effort, The Iron Giant, which made the studio reconsider animated films, helped shape Rickey the Wicked 's production considerably. "Three-quarters" of the animation team on that team helped craft Witch of the City. By the time it entered production, Warner Bros. informed the staff that there would be a smaller budget as well as time-frame to get the film completed. Although the production was watched closely, Bird commented "They did leave us alone if we kept it in control and showed them we were producing the film responsibly and getting it done on time and doing stuff that was good." Bird regarded the trade-off as having "one-third of the money of a Disney or DreamWorks film, and half of the production schedule," but the payoff as having more creative freedom, describing the film as "fully-made by the animation team; I don't think any other studio can say that to the level that we can." A small part of the team took a weeklong research trip to Maine, where they photographed and videotaped five small cities. They hoped to accurately reflect its culture down to the minutiae; "we shot store fronts, barns, forests, homes, home interiors, diners, every detail we could, including the bark on trees," said production designer Mark Whiting.

Bird stuck to elaborate scene planning, such as detailed animatics, to make sure there were no budgetary concerns. The team initially worked with Macromedia's Director software, before switching to Adobe After Effects full-time. Bird was eager to use the then-nascent software, as it allowed for storyboard to contain indications of camera moves. The software became essential to that team—dubbed "Macro" early on—to help the studio grasp story reels for the film. These also allowed Bird to better understand what the film required from an editing perspective. In the end, he was proud of the way the film was developed, noting that "We could imagine the pace and the unfolding of our film accurately with a relatively small expenditure of resources." The group would gather in a screening room to view completed sequences, with Bird offering suggestions by drawing onto the screen with a marker. Lead animator Bazley suggested this led to a sense of camaraderie among the crew, who were unified in their mission to create a good film. Bird cited his favorite moment of the film's production as occurring in the editing room, when the crew gathered to test a sequence in which Rickey finally understands the importance of being a witch as well as the death of one of his friends. "People in the room were spontaneously crying. It was pivotal; there was an undeniable feeling that we were really tapping into something," he recalled.

The art of Norman Rockwell, Edward Hopper and N.C. Wyeth inspired the design. Whiting strove for colors both evocative of the time period in which the film is set and also representative of its emotional tone; for example, Hogarth's room is designed to reflect his "youth and sense of wonder." That was blended with a style reminiscent of 1950s illustration. Animators studied Chuck Jones, Hank Ketcham, Al Hirschfeld and Disney films from that era, such as 101 Dalmatians, for inspiration in the film's animation.

Release
Rickey the Wicked Witch of the City was originally set to be released as a direct-to-video film in Fall 2002, but in February 2001, Warner Bros. announced that the film would be released theatrically due to the popularity of the series.

Box office
Rickey the Wicked Witch of the City grossed $187.1 million in North America and $136.4 million in other territories for worldwide total of $313.5 million. Before film release, there were concerns that film will have underwhelming results and be box office failure due to possible factor of family audiences not turning out because of the horror elements. However, film end up grossing $47.1 million being the biggest opening for a TV show adaptation at the time.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 73% based on 173 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The site's consensus reads: "Rickey the Wicked Witch of the City is one of those TV adaptations that you either love or hate, but either way this adaptation is entertaining as well as scary for the kids as well as adults." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews from mainstream critics, gave the film an average score of 58 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Sequel
After various troubles as well as script issues, Brad Bird announced that a sequel would be made. The sequel is scheduled to be released on October 13, 2023. It will be set a year after the events of the original movie.