BOO: the nearly-completed $100m+ film that DreamWorks cancelled

The story of BOO, an otherworldly animated film that DreamWorks cancelled at great expense when it was nearly complete.

Had all gone to plan, June 2015 would’ve seen the DreamWorks Animation release of B.O.O: Bureau Of Otherworldly Operations, a supernatural action comedy in which two bumbling ghosts join a counter–haunting unit and must face off against the world’s greatest haunter. The studio had spent over $100m on the movie, it was all but done. Yet it never hit that release date. In fact, it never hit any release date. 

The only public appearance of the film was through an online listing of a children’s drawing book cover showcasing the films human heroes.

So, what happened to B.O.O?

 

Early in 2009, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg referred to an upcoming film project as a, “supersecret ghost project.” In June, the news was released to the trade press that the film still didn’t have an official title but internally it was being referred to as Boo U.

The film was originally planned to tell the story of a ghost who is so bad at haunting that they must return to ghost school to improve their skills. However, this storyline was soon changed because allegedly there were too many similarities to Pixar’s Monsters University, which was also in development. John Vitti, who was part of the team of writers on The Simpsons Movie, and would go on to help write both Alvin And The Chipmunks and Angry Birds, was tasked with penning the script.

The film was to be directed by Tony Leondis – who had also directed 2008’s Igor and two straight-to-DVD sequels for Disney, Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has A Glitch and Kronk’s New Groove. Boo U was slated for release in the fourth quarter of 2012.

In August 2010 it was announced that Seth Rogen had signed on the dotted line to play one of the main characters. There were no further details apart from the fact that the film was also planned to be released in 3D (This feature must have been dropped as it was never mentioned again).

News of Boo U fell silent for several years, missing its original 2012 release window, until June 2013, when it was revealed that Melissa McCarthy had joined the cast to voice the role of Watts in the film under its new title of B.O.O. (Bureau Of Otherworldly Operations) which was now due for release on June 5th, 2015.

The first official synopsis accompanied the casting news. The Bureau of Otherworldly Operations was a super-secret government agency dedicated to protecting us from evil hauntings. What made this different from a film such as Ghostbusters was that the agency members themselves were ghosts. Two young human recruits from the bureau were also going to help the ghosts save the day.

The aforementioned Rogen was to voice agent Jackson Moss, whilst McCarthy was to lend her voice to his oddball partner Watts.

In the story, Moss and Watts uncover a plot by the agency’s Most Wanted Haunter to destroy B.O.O. They must use every trick in their arsenal to defeat his powerful ghost army and save Earth from a ghostly fate.

2013 continued to bring further casting announcements as in August, two more actors were revealed in the form of Rashida Jones and Matt Bomer. Jones would be voicing Rogen’s character’s ex-wife, while Bomer was cast as her new husband, an annoyingly perfect stepfather to Rogen’s son. This plot point about fatherhood would be a bone of contention throughout production – as we will discover later.

The biggest star name to become attached to the film was announced in October. Bill Murray, best known for busting ghosts, was now set to play one. He would be voicing the bad guy from the film, the villainous apparition named Addison Drake. The same announcement also added fellow cast members Jennifer Coolidge and Octavia Spencer.

“Bill Murray is the perfect actor to bring this character to life – or should I say ‘after-life?'” director Tony Leondis said in a statement. “Along with Jennifer and Octavia, this is a dream cast. I can’t imagine a team more capable of packing a funnier punch to this broadly comedic ghost story.”

Strangely, B.O.O would only make two more appearances in film news circles before disappearing altogether.

Near the end of 2014, there hadn’t been any form of marketing yet, so it made the film news circuit when it was discovered that our first look of the film had come unexpectedly from the cover of a kids learn to draw tie-in book. The image revealed the three main human characters and the B.O.O logo.

DreamWorks Animation was scheduled to have two other feature films released in 2015, namely Home and Kung Fu Panda 3. These would ultimately be the only releases of 2015as in November 2014, DreamWorks Animation announced that B.O.O was being delayed from its June 2015 release date.

A DreamWorks Animation spokesperson said that “animated features are our most valuable assets and we regularly evaluate how to maximize their value, including determining the most opportune time to release a film.”

If B.O.O had stuck to its original release date, it would have gone against such films as Insidious: Chapter 3 and Entourage. As a film aimed at the same target audience as B.O.O, the bigger threat was by far Pixar’s Inside Out, which would be released just two weeks after B.O.O’s scheduled release date. This would be the last we heard of the film and B.O.O would never see the light of day. Director Tony Leondis would move over to Sony to write and direct The Emoji Movie.

So, what happened to B.O.O?

Whilst DreamWorks Animation was outputting films that made a profit, they weren’t the big box office blockbusters they were hoping for. In fact, numbers had been dwindling, ever since the boss of the studio – Jeffrey Katzenberg – had announced an ambitious plan for three animated movies a year. 

Its bubble burst. The days of Shrek were over, and in the space of a few years, there had been several box office disappointments including (the excellent) Rise Of The Guardians, Turbo, and Mr. Peabody And Sherman.

This poor performance was having a serious effect on DreamWorks financial status. Before the studio decided to delay B.O.O, a major deal to sell DreamWorks to a Japanese telecommunications company, SoftBank Corp, fell through – causing share prices to sharply drop. Financing was becoming a growing problem.

November that same year saw another potential buyout from the toy company Hasbro, but its investors weren’t too pleased with the company deciding to enter the risky movie industry (ironically, a few years later, Hasbro would do just that, buying Entertainment One). Also, Hasbro had several lucrative licensing deals with DreamWorks rival Disney which, along with a disagreement on a selling price, caused the deal to collapse.

The announcement of the Hasbro buyout caused DreamWorks share prices to rise but the value quickly dropped back down after the news of the deal falling apart.

Another box office failure would devalue DreamWorks Animation even further and make the studio look less desirable any potential suitors. It was allegedly said that DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg himself was unhappy with the current state of B.O.O – another possible reason as to why the film was suddenly pulled from its release date.

A Yahoo.com report in 2019 revealed that B.O.O was nearing completion when the decision to delay the film was announced. The story was told by a couple of people who worked on the project, who wished to stay anonymous as they still worked within the industry.

Delays to B.O.O were announced in November 2014 and work carried on as normal, but in January 2015 the phone call came from above that the project was effectively dead. “Three years just gets flushed down the toilet!” said “Tim” whilst another source, “Mike”, who was higher up in production, said “I would say 60% of it was completely animated.”

Animated films are thoroughly planned out with the use of storyboards and rough animation before the go ahead is given to produce the final animated film you see in the cinema. “Mike” explained that 30% of the animation was finished with another 30% not very far behind. That obviously leaves 40% to be animated, but this isn’t unusual for a film close to release. “[The last few months] is usually when the most work is done on these films,” he explained.

It didn’t help that at the same time DreamWorks also announced the layoff off 500 jobs by closing the animation studio PDI that had worked on Antz and the original Shrek. This caused several projects to be put on hold or shelved altogether, and B.O.O was one of them.

Both “Mike” and “Tim” also suggested that the ending of the film had always been problematic with the studio. Apparently, no-one had been able to find a satisfactory solution.

Another major plot point was also causing issues amongst those working on the film. Seth Rogen’s character, Jackson Moss, was a father who had died and joined the Bureau of Otherworldly Operations so that he could maintain a relationship with his son who worked there. “Mike” explained “that started to become a concern for the studio the further and deeper we got into the project. I remember in the last year, that topic got brought up a lot.”

Ben Fritz, author of The Big Picture: The Fight For The Future Of Movies, also had another idea as to why this story point wasn’t helping B.O.O. “How To Train Your Dragon 2 didn’t do as well as DreamWorks had hoped and I know one of the reasons is his father dies in that film… DreamWorks, when they were doing a post-mortem on the movie thought that was one of the reasons that it didn’t resonate the way the first [one] did.”

B.O.O didn’t disappear without a trace though. As well as the aforementioned learn to draw book, an Amazon listing also appeared for a toy based on a gadget one of the film’s heroes can be seen wearing. Also, over the years, the internet has also unearthed many pieces of concept art, and you can find the biggest collection on this DreamWorks Fandom page dedicated to the lost film.

Here’s a 3D Visual Development reel for the film created by artist Danny Williams, showcasing the unique look of the film’s characters.

Finally, while only lasting for a minute and a half, this compilation features what looks to be finished animation from the film including great voice work from Bill Murray. That’s where the screengrabs for this feature 

It’s a shame when any film is cancelled, but especially one so close to completion. For a major blockbuster movie of this ilk to be all but made, with at least $100m spent on it, and then dropped at the last minute? Well, it’s incredibly rare, especially when it happens out in the happen. Years later,  it seems the most we’ll ever see of B.O.O are the small clips and story details available on the internet.

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