The Emoji Movie

About

The Emoji Movie is an upcoming 2017 computer-animated film featuring anthropomorphic, talking Emoji characters. The movie, set for released on August 4th, is directed by Tony Leondis, animated by Sony Pictures Animation and starring T. J. Miller as Gene, Ilana Glazer as Jailbreak and Patrick Stewart as Poop.^[1]^[2]

Origin

On July 21st, 2015, it was announced that Sony Pictures Animation had won a bidding war against Warner Bros and Paramount Pictures to produce an animated emoji film based on the script by Eric Siegel and Tony Leondis. At the 2016 CinemaCon, the film was officially announced, revealing that it would be set in the digital world of a smartphone. In July 2016, T. J. Miller was announced as protagonist Emoji Gene in a tweet by Sony Pictures Animation on World Emoji Day. In October 2016, it was announced that Ilana Glazer and James Corden will be joining the cast. In December 2016, the film’s title was renamed from Emojimovie: Express Yourself to The Emoji Movie. On December 20, 2016, a teaser trailer for the film was released (shown below).

On January 18th, 2017, @SonyPictures^[6] tweeted that Patrick Stewart had been cast as the voice of the Poop Emoji (shown below).

Online Presence

On September 9th, a Facebook^[10] page titled “The Emoji Movie” was created, garnering more than 11,800 likes over the next year. On October 10th, the /r/theemojimovie^[4] subreddit was launched for discussions about the upcoming film. On January 1st, 2017, promotional copy for the film was posted to the /r/copypasta^[5] subreddit.

Reception

Since the film’s announcement, many have mocked the premise for being cheesy and contrived. On October 10th, 2016, Redditor ArmVanDam submitted a post mocking a promotional image for the film to /r/FellowKids,^[7] which gained more than 7,500 votes (93% upvoted) and 730 comments within four months. On December 21st, Redditor zzzackk posted a two-pane image of an Emoji Movie poster above a picture of a man hanging himself to /r/dankmemes (shown below, left). Two days later, a the Sadchan Facebook page posted another two-pane image of the movie poster with the caption “There’s no way 2017 can be any wor-” (shown below, right).

Also on December 23rd, YouTuber LeafyIsHere uploaded a video titled “The Emoji Movie… (Yes Its Really That Bad)”, which accused the film of being “cancerous” (shown below). Over the next two months, the video gained upwards of 1.4 million views and 15,100 comments. On January 1st, 2017, The Inquisitr^[11] reporter that the trailer for the upcoming film had received more than 57,900 thumbs-down ratings.