(WARNING #1: As common with these articles, this report appears to be coming from an unconfirmed source. Please take the following information with a grain of salt until given official confirmation.)
(WARNING #2: The article contains passages and descriptions that may potentially be NSFW in nature. If you are under the age of 17, proceed with caution.)
Among many of the animated features to come in what will eventually be the 2016 year in animation, the one film that’s getting the least amount of attention is Sausage Party. This film is very much destined to be the odd one in the whole set, as it is an R-rated animated feature from the minds of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. In some respect, it’s a brave undertaking, as there haven’t been any R-rated theatrically-released animated features since 1999’s South Park: Bigger, Badder, and Uncut. But if there’s anybody with the boldness and clout to attempt it again (sixteen years later, I might add), it’s these two.
With that said, we have an unconfirmed report from earlier in the year by FilmDivider (NSFW link!) that spills a metric ton of details on the characters and what the film will be about.
But first, let’s familiarize ourselves with the plot. Sausage Party takes place in a supermarket, portraying a secret (and sometimes not-so-secret) world of talking food products. This is where we meet two sausages Frank and Carl (Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill, respectively), who dream of being purchased and taken through the doors and onto ‘The Great Beyond’.
Asides from offering up a trippy and very adult riff on familiar tropes and archetypes in feature animation (hidden worlds, anthropomorphized characters, etc), Sausage Party will also have an interesting angle on the theme of faith (with ‘The Great Beyond’ serving as a stand-in for heaven). Oddly enough, this is where the film gets even more trippy and more adult. Let’s just say that Carl and Frank’s idea of what awaits them in ‘The Great Beyond’ isn’t exactly kid-friendly.
Once they find out that ‘The Great Beyond’ isn’t all that’s cracked up to be, they got lost upon escaping the purchase area and have to navigate their way through the supermarket in order to get back home (‘home’ in this case meaning their own aisles).
Now, let’s move on to the details:
- There will be at least two “big” song and dance sequences in the film.
- Those numbers will be written by a very recognizable name in animation: eight-time Oscar-winning composer Alan Menken (with lyrics by Rogen and Goldberg).
- One song will be an opening number about ‘The Great Beyond’, while the other one will be about “facing death fearlessly.” There will also be an extra number: a celebratory song at the end that will effectively act as a reprise of the opener.
- The lead character of Frank (played by Rogen) is written to be like “Jay Baruchel in sausage form.”
- Asides from Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Anders Holm play Barry and Troy (respectively). They are also sausages and together with Frank and Carl (their buddies), they form the titular ‘Sausage Party’.
- The sausage party will be broken up during the course of the film, leaving Frank to team up with a ragtag group of food items on their quest for the truth.
- This group of food items consists of a “sexy” hot dog bun (Kristen Wiig), A Jewish bagel named Sammy Bagel, Jr (Ed Norton), An Arabic bread named Lavash (David Krumholtz), and a “feisty Mexican taco” named Theresa Taco (Salma Hayek).
- As expected with this type of broad comedy, the food items are meant to share the stereotypical characteristics and aspects of where they come from, or puns based on similar ideas. For example: “the bagel is very stereotypically Jewish, and clashes with the Arabic bread.”
- The main villain of the film is named Douche (literally, that’s who he is) and he is voiced by Nick Kroll (described as “perfectly-cast.”).
- Other characters in the film include “a jar of honey mustard, a human ‘druggie’ and a piece of chewed gum’.” Those roles are expected to go to the following actors: James Franco, Paul Rudd, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson.
- Bill Hader will have two roles: a thing of guacamole and an old bottle of fire water.
All in all, it’s everything that you would expect from the fine gentlemen that gave us Superbad, Pineapple Express, This is the End, and last year’s super-controversial The Interview. Say what you will about the film itself, but it should (at the very least) prove to be an interesting case-study as to how people will react to an R-rated animated film in 2016.
Sausage Party will slide its way into theaters on June 3, 2016.
What do you think? Are you intrigued by Sausage Party at all?
Edited by: Morgan Stradling