Going Francisco

Going Francisco is a 2003 American hand-drawn/computer-animated science-fiction comedy film produced by Warner Bros. Feature Animation and Imagine Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The feature-length directorial debut of Antoine Miller, the film's screenplay was written by Tim Hill, Karey Kirkpatrick, Bob Tzudiker, and Noni White from a story by Miller. It stars the voices of Spencer Klein, Amanda Bynes, Jennifer Coolidge, George Clooney, Willem Dafoe, Jodi Benson, Stephen Root, and Patrick Warburton. This was also the first fully animated film to be produced by Imagine Entertainment. Going Francisco follows the Crosby family, who live next door to a neighbor named "The Champ" who then teleports them into a computerized caricature of San Francisco, where they meet a mysterious, clear-white, bald man named Mr. Suit, whom they later realize is actually a character controlled by their neighbor in a video game; the family must escape him and rush through the virtual city to find their way back to the real world in time for their special occasions.

The initial idea was conceived in 1999 by Antoine Miller following work on his animated film Da Jammies when Brian Grazer and Allison Abbate approached him to make a new animated film for Warner Bros. Feature Animation in co-production with Imagine Entertainment. The animation of the film combines hand-drawn 2D traditional animation with computer-generated imagery (CGI), with Mercury Filmworks, Bardel Entertainment, Yowza! Animation, DKP Effects, and Animal Logic handling animation services.

Going Francisco premiered at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, California on February 22, 2003, and was released in the United States on March 14, 2003. The film received mixed reviews from critics, with particular criticism directed at the film's sitcom-like production values and story. The film was also a box office bomb, where it grossed $46 million against a $70 million budget, which was blamed on Warner Bros.' unusually poor marketing campaign. However, through home video releases and television syndication, the film has since attained a cult following, particularly among those who grew up with the film.

Plot
The Crosby family — husband Anson, wife Rhea, and siblings Dan and Sara — live in Jefferson, Missouri, next door to a video gamer labeled by his bumper sticker as "The Champ", who has garnered suspicion among his neighbors for projecting bright blue glows from his window in the middle of the night. One night, the Crosby family prepares for a road trip to an extended family reunion in San Francisco, California. Dan and Sara are less than enthused, as they previously intended to partake in special activities with their friends; Dan wanted to help his group compete against a rivaling basketball team at his school gym, and Sara wanted to escape her after-school evenings with her brother by attending a slumber party. The light from the house next-door glows progressively brighter, and just as the family begins taking off for the reunion, an electrical surge emerges from the house through the neighborhood's power lines and zaps the Crosbies, taking their van with it.

They are now teleported to a strange flat and pixelated version of San Francisco, where they are met by Mr. Suit, a clear-white, bald man who offers to help the family get to Lombard Street, expecting to meet the extended family there. While the Crosbies follow Mr. Suit, Dan and Sara suddenly become separated from the group and visit a bar where they are surrounded and attacked by a motorcycle gang led by Roger, but are rescued by a young female racer named Carly McWheels. The three are then chased by Roger and his gang, but manage to escape from them successfully. She tells the siblings that she can take them to the Crosby family reunion where Dan and Sara's parents are going, and Carly accompanies them so they can reunite their parents.

As Rhea and Anson search for their missing children, Mr. Suit begins to repeatedly offer a new domestic life with Rhea and the kids, much to their irritation. During a chase through Chinatown, Mr. Suit saves Dan and Sara, which delights the siblings, but worries the parents about Suit "spoiling" their children. Suit begins to appease the kids' demands, while the parents take note of Suit's familiar speech topics and eventually discover that he is, in fact, an avatar controlled by The Champ, and that they have been sucked into the popular action-adventure video game Road Rage: California played by him.

Suit's actions lead to him being caught by the police, but manages to pursue them by exiting the game while leaving Dan and Sara in the car to get "arrested" which sends them to the beginning of the game's plot with their memories reverted. They are picked up by Carly, who is revealed to be the player's companion. They set off for the Golden Gate Bridge, hoping they could find their family there. Spending the night, Sara finds Dan falling in love with Carly and talking about her beginning to reciprocate his feelings. Despite that, Sara, Dan and Carly continue their mission to reach the Golden Gate Bridge. However, the video game begins to glitch out as Anson and Rhea hack the coding, attempting to rewrite the NPCs so they would bring the children forth and take down Champ's avatar once and for all. Reconciling with the kids proves difficult due to their amnesia (they believe Dan and Sara are still overindulged by Suit) until Anson reveals to have backed up their memories from the game's history.

With Dan and Sara's memories restored thanks to the backup, the children finally reunite with their parents and the Crosby family attempts to head back to reality. Suddenly, The Champ then opens a new multiplayer server to have an army of other players attack the family for revenge. However, the Crosbies, along with Carly, rely on one of the army members, Dan's school bully Ronnie, to forward a message to those they were supposed to meet with — Dan and Sara's friends, and the extended family — inviting them to the server to revolt against Champ. They defeat the army using a bug caused by the parents' recoding: if the Abraham Lincoln statue's decapitated head looks straight at players' screen from up close, the game will crash.

With Champ reported and signed up for rehabilitation, the Crosbies are returned to reality by an officer who inspects the experiment Champ used to teleport the family with. They reconsider the decision to go on their respective trips after the abundant time they've already spent with their family and friends. However, now exhausted from the artificial elements of the game world, they decide instead to take a simple drive across the country, together as a loving family.

Cast

 * Spencer Klein as Dan Crosby, Sara's younger brother; a 12-year old basketball geek.
 * Amanda Bynes as Sara Crosby, Dan's older sister; a 15-year old high school sophomore and a typical neat-freak teenage girl.
 * Jennifer Coolidge as Rhea Crosby, the mother of the siblings.
 * George Clooney as Anson Crosby, the father of the siblings.
 * Willem Dafoe as The Champ, the Crosbys' next-door neighbor and an aspiring top-ranking player of Road Rage: California.
 * Dafoe also voices Mr. Suit, a mysterious character whom the Champ is controlling.
 * Mandy Moore as Carly McWheels, a talented NPC racer in Road Rage: California whom Dan and Crosby go to for help on their adventure.
 * Stephen Root as Rob Belvin, a police officer in Road Rage: California.
 * Patrick Warburton as Roger, the leader of a biker gang in Road Rage: California.
 * Dan Aykroyd as Thomas, Betty's husband.
 * Molly Shannon as Betty, Thomas's wife.
 * Justin Shenkarow as Jerry, Dan's best friend.
 * George Wu as Lin, a Chinatown resident.
 * Pamela Adlon as Judy
 * Lauren Tom as Nina
 * Rob Paulsen as Nick
 * Joe Alaskey as Police Officer #1
 * Thalia Ward as Police Officer #2
 * Paul Eiding as Police Officer #3 and Biker #1
 * Jeff Bennett as Biker #2 and Pawn Shop Owner
 * Rodger Bumpass as Biker #3
 * Jess Harnell as Joe
 * Harland Williams as Foreman
 * Kath Soucie as Driver
 * Tom Kenny as Ronnie

Additional voices

 * Carlos Alazraqui
 * Jack Angel
 * Bob Bergen
 * Susan Blu
 * Catherine Cavadini
 * Jennifer Darling
 * Debi Derryberry
 * Ashley Edner
 * Bobby Edner
 * Bill Farmer
 * Lynn Hobson
 * Roger L. Jackson
 * Danny Mann
 * Jason Marsden
 * Mickie McGowan
 * Laraine Newman
 * Pat Pinney
 * Phil Proctor
 * Jan Rabson
 * Daryl Sabara
 * Evan Sabara

Development
In December 1998, shortly before the animated feature Da Jammies was released in summer 1999, Antoine Miller (who was working on Fox's Alaina Gleen at the time) was approached by Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment and Allison Abbate (who was working on The Iron Giant at the time) to develop a new film at Warner Bros.' main animation division. Miller then pitched several ideas for the studio, in which among them (the one that was ultimately green-lit) was a concept of "a family road trip inside a virtual world" he originally had as a proposed TV series for Fox Kids back in 1995. Miller wrote a treatment and pitched it to Abbate, who was "definitely blown away" of the concept. Shortly after, pre-production on the film began under the working title Road Rage: California for a late 2002 release. On October 2, 2001, it was announced that Miller was directing the film, now entitled Going Francisco, with a set release date of spring 2003, with Tim Hill, Karey Kirkpatrick, Bob Tzudiker, and Noni White hired to write the script while Abbate, Grazer, and Joe Medjuck would produce it.

Animation
Pre-production was done at the main Sherman Oaks Feature Animation studio in Glendale, California, starting as early as mid-2000. The animation work was done at Bardel Entertainment in Vancouver under the direction of Barry Ward and Delna Bhesania and Yowza! Animation in Toronto, and clean-up work done at the main Sherman Oaks studio. Additional clean-up/animation was done by Mercury Filmworks in Canada.

One of the film's goals was to blend different mediums of animation into one film to have such a seamless finish to the point you could not tell the difference between what was two-dimensional hand drawing or computer-generated 3D animations and environments. For the animation of Going Francisco, there are three main elements that were essential to the production of this film. The traditional 2D character animation, three-dimensional character animation, and the computer-generated or CG character animation and environments. According to Miller, he wanted to utilize computer animation for the San Francisco scenes in the film as he described them as a "3D video game world". The main computer-generated animation work was done at DKP Effects in Toronto, Canada, and Animal Logic in Sydney, Australia.

To ensure CG animation, 3D workbooks were created using Softimage 3D software. 54 animators worked on the film, using 300 computer processors to animate the CGI scenes. To make the 2D characters turn into CGI, Miller and fellow character designer Shannon Tindle had an orthographic view of the characters, and the character designs were drawn on paper and scanned into the PowerAnimator software for the modelers to rig in the computers. The programs were "Fuzzy Tool," which was used for the characters' hair and clothing and to create fur and grass; "Body Builder," which was used to create skin and muscles for the characters; and "Mug Shot," a shape blender that works within Alias Maya for facial animation and lip-synching.

During post-production, the film was sent to Skywalker Sound, where the sound effects were mixed with the music score.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack was released on March 4, 2003 by Interscope Records.

Track listing

 * 1) "Invincible" - Michael Jackson
 * 2) "Getaway" - Earth, Wind &amp; Fire
 * 3) "It's Gonna Be Me" - NSYNC
 * 4) "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) " - Scott McKenzie
 * 5) "Maximum Consumption" - The Kinks
 * 6) "In the Hood" - Kool &amp; the Gang
 * 7) "You Rock My World" - Michael Jackson
 * 8) "Hyperreal Orbit" - The Shamen
 * 9) "Michael" - Roy Davis Jr.
 * 10) "Clock Is Mine" - Lyre Le Temps
 * 11) "San Francisco (You've Got Me)" - Village People

Score
The original music for the film was composed by John Debney. The score was released on March 18, 2003 by Varèse Sarabande.

Track listing

 * 1) Main Title / Road Rage Theme
 * 2) Evening Plans
 * 3) They Call Him the Champ
 * 4) Electrical Convenience
 * 5) Urban Lunatics
 * 6) The Kidnapping
 * 7) Chinatown
 * 8) Mr. Suit Ruins It
 * 9) The Secret of the Suit
 * 10) Can You Police Help Us?
 * 11) Lots of Cars Comin'
 * 12) Knocked Out
 * 13) Reprogramming
 * 14) You Can't Escape!
 * 15) Calling Back to Reality
 * 16) Friends and Family Revolt
 * 17) What Do You Think?

Theatrical
Going Francisco was initially set for release on November 22, 2002, but the date was later changed to March 2003, to avoid competition with films being released in time for the Thanksgiving season. The film was released in theaters on March 14, 2003, by Warner Bros. Pictures.

Marketing
The first trailer was released theatrically in September 2002 with Dusk and Dawn. A second trailer debuted in December 2002.

A video game based on the film was developed by EA Redwood Shores and published by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and Windows which was released on March 11, 2003. A Xbox version was planned, but was cancelled due to the financial failure of the film.

Home media
To be added soon

Box office
To be added soon

Critical reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Going Francisco has an approval rating of 57% collected from 78 reviews, with an average rating of 5.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Going Francisco may deserve points for its visuals and talented cast, but the script plays it too much like a Saturday morning cartoon—and not often a funny one to begin with." Metacritic gives the film a score of 51 out of 100 from 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Accolades
Coming soon!

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

Trailers
To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.