The Gateway to Glowsburg

The Gateway to Glowsburg is a 2015 American computer-animated urban fantasy comedy film produced by Frenzy Animation, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, and the Warner Animation Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was directed by Samuel Merritt and Bibo Bergeron (in the former's feature directorial debut) from a screenplay by Michael J. Wilson, Peter Baynham, and Joel Quinn, and stars the voices of Chloë Grace Moretz, Sarah Vowell, Ben Schwartz, Steve Zahn, Katherine Heigl, Tom Hiddleston, Teri Hatcher, and Stanley Tucci. The film centers around four unlikely teenagers who end up finding the mysterious path to the secret urban city of Glowsburg, a beautiful utopian place filled with many colorful and magical glowing things, before they soon find that there is a threatening plot occurring at the city that only they can stop.

Development on The Gateway to Glowsburg began in 2010 at Frenzy Animation, during the production of Leaders of Academy. The Frenzy core team led by producer Marcus Crawford began to pitch their next film to Warner Bros. and they eventually came on board in December 2011, with the film officially announced the following year under the working title Prism City. The film's animation services were handled at Sony Pictures Imageworks in Vancouver, Canada, which had also provided animation for Leaders of Academy.

The Gateway to Glowsburg premiered in Los Angeles on February 22, 2015, and was theatrically released in the United States on March 6 in RealD 3D, IMAX, and conventional formats. It received mostly positive reviews from critics, who praised its visuals, humor, screenplay, musical score, and vocal performances, though its plot and character designs were found to be derivative. The film was also a box office success, grossing over $316 million worldwide against its $90 million budget. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, losing both to Inside Out. A sequel, titled The Gateway to Glowsburg: A New Glow, was released in theaters and on HBO Max on May 28, 2021.

Plot
In Portland, Oregon, high school student Melinda "Lindy" Benson, 16-year-old daughter of Wendy and Robert Benson, is an urban legend expert and theorist who is often ridiculed for her dream of finding the legendary glowing city of Glowsburg, a beautiful utopian place filled with many colorful and magical glowing things. Her best friend, Veronica Sanchez, finds in Lindy a kindred spirit as she also becomes interested in visiting Glowsburg with her.

One day, after getting dismissed from a school presentation, the girls meet up with a teenage boy named Harold Penn (whom Lindy becomes enamored with) and his best friend Lester Simmons, who both know about Glowsburg's existence as well as the path to the city and offer Lindy and Veronica any boon they desire in using a map to Glowsburg. Lindy is reluctant to accept their offer, unless they do have proof.

The next day, Lindy and the group prepare to leave for Glowsburg by taking Harold's van, only to suddenly crash through an abandoned tunnel near a forest that Lindy believes is a dead end and blames Harold for the group's predicament. As they prepare to leave, Lindy and Veronica encounter a golden lizard-like creature, whom they name Lemon. They are then led by Lemon, who has the ability to glow-in-the-dark, to a secret entrance behind the tunnel, into Glowsburg. They are welcomed by the city's mayor Abigail K. Slickersen and her loyal assistant Walter Temmer, who decide to let them attend and stay at the Glowsburg Academy due to their young age. At the academy, the teens are given a luxurious room, along with a glow simulation for a lesson taught by the teacher Mr. Hotguy. Inspired, Lindy ends up applying to the academy.

The group decides to explore more of Glowsburg, coming to appreciate the peaceful life embraced by the citizens. However, life in the city soon turns to disappointment for Lindy as she nearly gets disgusted and humiliated after eating glow soup and drinking glow juice (which causes her mouth to glow). To impress her feelings, Harold takes Lindy on a date at an arcade restaurant, and two eventually begin to fall in love. Meanwhile, Veronica, Lester and Lemon learn that Slickersen is secretly planning to capture every Glowsburgian creature and make them slaves in order to make the lights in Glowsburg more stronger. Horrified, Veronica and Lester manage to hurry to warn Lindy and Lester, but Lemon is suddenly injected by Slickersen with a tranquilizer and ends up being captured and taken to a shelter within the Glowsburg Academy as a result.

While trying to rescue Lemon, Slickersen traps the teens with her working Rube Goldberg-like mouse trap with a bigger cage, and ends up tricking them. Walter later frees the group and reveals how Glowsburg was once a popular state until it was bypassed and later forgotten due to concerns over its high illuminated buildings and strange creatures, and that Walter was once the mayor of Glowsburg before Slickersen took over following the city's disappearance. The teens rescue Lemon along with other creatures from the shelter while Walter helps them escape.

Although the teens are able to foil Slickersen's plan, Lindy informs that they cannot stay in Glowsburg and confesses that they need to get back home in Portland because of Slickersen's dangerous reign, causing the others to argue about whether or not to go back. Veronica, desperate to save Glowsburg to follow Walter's footsteps, insults Lindy by saying that Glowsburg is a not dangerous place. Feeling betrayed, a heartbroken Lindy abandons the group and returns home while the others proceed to save Glowsburg, only to get ambushed by Slickersen and her goons. While heading back to Portland, Lindy realizes Veronica is right and manages to return to Glowsburg with the help of her parents as well as Lemon and the other freed Glowsburgian creatures.

Veronica, Harold, Lester and a few other Glowsburgian creatures awaken in a cage surrounded by tall chain-link fences. Slickersen holds a speech where she announces plans to force the teens to put the creatures into a more powerful glowing system that executes them while also planning to hunt down Lemon to sell it. They are soon rescued by Lindy and the freed creatures and together they defeat Slickersen and her minions. As the group manages to escape, Veronica and Lemon suddenly become stranded and Slickersen tries to kill them both. Lindy manages to save the two, and all four engage in a long battle. Slickersen threatens to kill Lindy by tackling her from a ledge, but a furious Lemon attacks Slickersen while he and Veronica rescue Lindy and destroy the glowing system. Lindy and Veronica reconcile, and Slickersen and her goons are arrested for their crimes while Walter, who has turned against Slickersen for her actions, returns to his place as the mayor of Glowsburg, putting the city back on the map.

Sometime later, Lindy and her friends and family decide to move into Glowsburg where the city regards them as heroes, with Lindy rejoining the Glowsburg Academy with her friends and starting a romantic relationship with Harold, while Lemon also becomes Lindy's pet.

Voice cast

 * Chloë Grace Moretz as Melinda "Lindy" Benson, an optimistic and kind 16-year-old tomboy who is interested in visiting the secret city of Glowsburg. She later becomes Harold Penn's love interest.
 * Sarah Vowell as Veronica Sanchez, Lindy's best friend.
 * Ben Schwartz as Harold Penn, a teenage boy whom Lindy develops a crush on.
 * Steve Zahn as Lester Simmons, Harold's best friend.
 * Katherine Heigl as Mayor Abigail K. Slickersen, the widowed mayor of Glowsburg.
 * Tom Hiddleston as Walter Temmer, Slickersen's assistant who is revealed to be the original mayor of Glowsburg.
 * Teri Hatcher as Wendy Benson, Lindy's loving overprotective mother who cares so much about her only daughter.
 * Stanley Tucci as Robert Benson, Lindy's overworked father who barely has time to see his own daughter.
 * Samuel Merritt as Lemon, a golden lizard-like creature with the ability to glow-in-the-dark who befriends the teens and later becomes Lindy's pet.
 * Maya Rudolph as Ms. Larza, Lindy's teacher in her school back in Portland, Oregon.
 * Thomas Middleditch as Mr. Hotguy, a teacher that works at the Glowsburg Academy who is known for his good looks, hence his name.
 * Will Forte as Anthony, an emotionless elf-like creature from Glowsburg.
 * Eddie Izzard as Jory, an elf-like creature from Glowsburg who is a con artist.
 * Vanessa Marshall as Maria Sanchez, Veronica's mother.
 * Alexis Bledel as Clara, a student at the Glowsburg Academy.
 * Isabel Lucas as Isabel
 * Bibo Bergeron as Hon
 * Kari Wahlgren as Betty
 * Craig Kellman as Boris, Critter #2
 * Greg Cipes as Geraldo
 * Maurice LaMarche as Fing

Loop Group

 * Holly J. Barrett
 * Jack Blessing
 * Dave Boat
 * Ranjani Brow
 * William Calvert
 * Rachel Crane
 * Niall Cunningham
 * Giselle Eisenberg
 * Chase Fein
 * Dann Fink
 * Don Fullilove
 * Danielle Hartnett
 * Jacob Head
 * Wendy Hoffmann
 * Ashley Lambert
 * Lex Lang
 * Hope Levy
 * Scott Menville
 * Alix Wilton Regan
 * Chris Sprister
 * Shane Sweet
 * Ruth Zalduondo

Development and writing
To be added

Casting
To be added

Animation and design
The film's animation, which began production in the fall of 2012, was provided by Sony Pictures Imageworks, who also provided animation for Leaders of Academy. Cartoonist Chuck McKay served as the lead character designer for The Gateway to Glowsburg, marking his second collaboration with Frenzy after Beastz. Other character designers include Carlos Grangel, Pete Oswald, Sylvain Deboissy, Craig Kellman, Carey Yost, Andy Bialk, Patrick Mate, and Chris Battle.

Approximately 130 animators worked on the production of the film. To differentiate the project from Frenzy Animation's previous projects, every main character had its own supervising animator – Jeff Panko on Lindy, Peter Nash on Veronica, Tim Pixton on Harold, William Petruccelli on Lester, and Mathew Cowie on Lemon. The animation used throughout the film was more complex than anything Frenzy had done before.

To help create the look of the titular city, the production crew visited Garden Glow at the Missouri Botanical Garden on a research trip to see attractive locations they could utilize as inspiration for the setting. They also used Esri's CityEngine to establish an impressive metropolis filled with glowing lights. Several other software programs were used in creating the film's CGI characters and props including Autodesk Maya and Arnold, Houdini, ZBrush, and Nuke, as well as in-house software.

Music
In July 2014, it was announced that Hans Zimmer, would compose the score for the film. According to co-director Bibo Bergeron, the original intention was to reunite Zimmer and John Powell since The Road to El Dorado (2000), which was also directed by Bergeron, and the first two Kung Fu Panda films. However, while Zimmer accepted to compose the score for The Gateway to Glowsburg, Powell was unavailable. The soundtrack was released on February 24, 2015 by WaterTower Music.

Marketing
A teaser trailer for the film was released via Warner Bros. Pictures' YouTube channel on June 11, 2014, and debuted before How to Train Your Dragon 2 two days later. This was followed by a full trailer on October 14, 2014. The final trailer was released on January 15, 2015. Warner partnered the film with licensing and promotional partners valued at $70 million for the marketing campaign. One of the partners included McDonald's, which released a promotion for a toy set offered in their Happy Meals for the film between February and March 2015. Additional marketing partners for the film included General Mills, Lego, Kraft Foods, Ad Council, and American Express.

Theatrical
The Gateway to Glowsburg was initially set for release on November 14, 2014, but in October 2012, the film was pushed back to February 6, 2015. In March 2014, the film's release date was pushed back for a final time, to March 6, 2015, with Paramount's The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water taking the February release date.

Home media
The Gateway to Glowsburg was released on Digital HD on June 26, 2015, and on DVD and Blu-ray (2D and 3D) on July 7, 2015, by Warner Home Video. All releases include the short film Lemon Time. The DVD and Blu-ray combo pack also comes with a Lemon plush toy. The film topped the home video sales chart for two consecutive weeks. As of March 2017, 8.5 million home entertainment units were sold worldwide.

Box office
To be added

Critical response
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 78% based on 159 reviews; the average rating is 7.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Even if the plot rehashes some elements from earlier animated films, dazzling visuals, sweet humor and strong voice cast make The Gateway to Glowsburg a tidy addition to Frenzy's line of animation." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score of 63 out of 100, based on 45 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Accolades
To be added

Video game
A video game based on the film titled The Gateway to Glowsburg, published by GameMill Entertainment, was released on March 3, 2015 for the Nintendo 3DS. It is a side-scrolling platforming game.

Sequel
Following the film's critical and commercial success, Warner Bros. announced plans for a sequel on August 17, 2015. Titled The Gateway to Glowsburg: A New Glow, was released on May 28, 2021 in theaters and on HBO Max simultaneously after being delayed for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was directed again by Samuel Merritt and Bibo Bergeron and written by Michael J. Wilson. Many of the voice cast from the previous film reprised their roles in the sequel, joined by Jennifer Lawrence, Albert Brooks, Bobby Cannavale, James Marsden, Anthony Anderson, John C. Reilly, and Becky G. In the sequel, Lindy Benson and her friends face off against Mr. Mysterious, the darkest mysterious man of Glowsburg City who attempts to conquer the whole city with his most powerful machine that wipes out the glowing lights in the city.

Television series
In November 2015, it was confirmed that a television series based on The Gateway to Glowsburg will be produced for Cartoon Network. By August 2016, the series was announced as Adventures in Glowsburg, which premiered on Cartoon Network worldwide on March 11, 2017, developed by Frenzy Animation.

Main transcript
To see the transcript of the film, click here.

Trailer transcripts
To see the transcripts for the trailers of the film, click here.