Sausage Party
Sausage Party is a 2016 American-Canadian 3D adult animated comedy film directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan and written by Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg from a story by Rogen, Goldberg, and Jonah Hill. A parody of Disney and Pixar films, the film centers on an anthropomorphic sausage named Frank who lives in a supermarket and discovers the truth about his existence. He goes on a journey with his friends to escape their fate while also facing his nemesis, a psychopathic douche who wants to kill him and his friends. The film's animation was handled by Canada-based Nitrogen Studios.
It is the first 3D computer-animated film to be rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. The film's rough cut premiered on March 14, 2016 at South by Southwest, followed by its general theatrical release in the United States and Canada on August 12, 2016 by Sony Pictures Releasing.
The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised its humor and screenplay. It grossed $140.7 million against a budget of $19 million and surpassed as the highest-grossing R-rated animated film of all time.
Plot
A supermarket called Shopwell's is filled with anthropomorphic grocery items who believe that the human shoppers are gods, who take groceries they have purchased to a utopia known as the "Great Beyond". Among the groceries in the store is a sausage named Frank, who dreams of living in the Great Beyond with his hot dog bun girlfriend Brenda and his fellow sausage friends Carl and Barry.Frank and Brenda's packages are purchased by a woman named Camille Toh. On their way out of the supermarket, a returned jar of honey mustard tries to warn the groceries that the Great Beyond is a lie, but nobody listens except Frank. Before committing suicide by falling onto the shop floor, Honey Mustard tells Frank to seek out a bottle of liquor named Firewater for information regarding what is really in the Great Beyond. Honey Mustard's suicide creates an accidental cart collision that causes Frank, Brenda and several groceries to fall out of the cart, including a Jewish bagel named Sammy Bagel Jr., a Middle Eastern lavash named Kareem Abdul Lavash and an aggressive douche whose nozzle is bent on impact; Douche swears to get revenge against Frank and Brenda after the store's manager, Darren, throws him away. Douche later drinks a juice box to gain power.
Seeking to verify Honey Mustard's warning, Frank leads Brenda, Sammy and Lavash to the store's liquor aisle. There, he meets Firewater, with whom he smokes marijuana from a kazoo pipe and learns that Firewater and the other non-perishables invented the white lie of the Great Beyond to assuage the foods' fear of being eaten. Frank vows to reveal the truth to the groceries and is encouraged to travel beyond the store's freezer section for the proof, while Brenda, Sammy and Lavash are brought by a bottle of Tequila to the Mexican food aisle, until a lesbian Taco shell named Teresa del Taco helps them escape Douche, who murders Tequila for losing them.
Meanwhile, at Camille's house, Carl and Barry are horrified to witness the murder of other purchased foods being cooked and eaten by her. Carl is sliced in half by Camille, but Barry manages to escape and encounters a human drug addict who becomes able to communicate with his groceries after injecting himself with bath salts. However, the bath salts soon wear off and the druggie prepares to cook Barry. The druggie accidentally burns himself and Barry yanks his shoelaces, making him slip and causing a decorative axe to fall and decapitate him.
When Frank is reunited with his friends, they disapprove of his skepticism of the Great Beyond and leave him to his own devices. He discovers a cookbook behind a freezer and reveals its contents to the rest of Shopwell's groceries and they initially panic but soon refuse to listen to Frank because they don't want their purpose smashed, prompting Frank to lash out at them for their blind belief. Barry, along with the other food items from the druggie's home, returns with the addict's severed head, proving that the humans are mortals, not gods. Frank, Barry and the others drug the human shoppers and employees with toothpicks laced with bath salts, whereupon after Frank apologizes for not being mindful of the groceries' beliefs, a battle begins. Several humans are gruesomely killed while Douche takes control of Darren. He confronts Frank about becoming a god due to his constant consumption, then takes a bite out of Frank's torso. Brenda saves Frank as Barry and the other foods catch Douche and Darren in a pail strapped to propane tanks. They are then launched out of the store and killed in a massive explosion.
The groceries celebrate their victory with a store-wide orgy. Later, they meet Firewater and Gum, a chewed-up wad of bubble gum who had a psychedelic experience and discovered that their world is not real; they are merely cartoon characters voiced by famous actors in another dimension. Gum has constructed a portal to this dimension, and the groceries decide to travel there to meet their creators.
Voice cast
Note: The following shows the actors' last names in alphabetical order.- Michael Cera as Barry, a deformed sausage who is one of Frank's friends.
- James Franco as the Druggie, an drug addict who is the first human to see food as sentient beings after injecting himself with bath salts.
- Bill Hader as Firewater, an old Native American bottle of liquor and the leader of the immortal Non-Perishables.
- * Hader also plays José Tequila, a bottle of Tequila who was a crony of Douche's as he led Brenda and her friends to be caught by him in exchange for his life, which backfired.
- Salma Hayek as Teresa del Taco, a Mexican lesbian taco shell who has a crush on Brenda.
- Jonah Hill as Carl, a sausage who is friends with Frank and Barry.
- Anders Holm as Troy, one of the sausages who picks on Barry.
- Nick Kroll as Douche, a foul-mouthed feminine hygiene product and Frank's archenemy who seeks revenge on Frank for accidentally breaking his nozzle and preventing him from reaching the "Great Beyond".
- David Krumholtz as Kareem Abdul Lavash, a Middle Eastern lavash who has an on-and-off rivalry with Sammy Bagel Jr. He is implied to be Muslim as he desires “77 bottles of extra virgin olive oil”.
- Danny McBride as Honey Mustard, a jar of Bickle's Honey Mustard who is returned to his shelf upon the shopper mistaking him for regular mustard, and tries to warn Frank and the other products of the reality of the "Great Beyond" before committing suicide.
- Edward Norton as Sammy Bagel Jr., a Jewish bagel who has an on-and-off rivalry with Lavash.
- Craig Robinson as Mr. Grits, an African-American box of grits who is one of the immortal Non-Perishables. He has a grudge against crackers.
- Seth Rogen as Frank, a sausage who sets out to discover and expose the truth of his and his fellow groceries' existence.
- Paul Rudd as Darren, the manager of Shopwell's who is nicknamed the "Dark Lord" as he disposes of expired food and spilled items.
- Kristen Wiig as Brenda, a hot dog bun from an 8-bun package of Glamour Buns who is Frank's love interest.
Production
Rogen has said that he worked for eight years to get the film made but the content worried most film studios. Noting that the film came from "an innocent place", Rogen stated that "'What would it be like if our food had feelings?' We very quickly realized that it would be fucked up." Goldberg revealed the project to Indiewire in July 2010, stating it was a "top secret super project". Initially, Indiewire was skeptical that the project was real and not a hoax on Goldberg's part, but after vetting, it did confirm that it was in the works. In November 2010, Hill independently confirmed to MTV News that he was working on an R-rated 3D animated film.The film was formally announced in September 2013 as a partnership between Sony Pictures, Annapurna Pictures. and Point Grey Pictures. On May 29, 2014, it was announced that the film would be released on June 3, 2016, but the release date was later revised to August 12, 2016. In January 2014, Rogen, Hill, James Franco and Kristen Wiig were announced as the leads in the film. The other cast includes Edward Norton, Michael Cera, David Krumholtz and Nick Kroll. On April 9, 2014, Salma Hayek was set to lend her voice to the film as Teresa the Taco. It was also announced that Paul Rudd, Danny McBride and Anders Holm would voice characters in the film.
When Seth Rogen originally submitted the film to the Motion Picture Association of America, they gave it an NC-17 rating due to the visibility of pubic hair on Lavash's scrotum during the climactic food orgy scene. Once said pubic hair was removed, the film received its final R rating for "strong crude sexual content, pervasive language and drug use". The film was granted a certificate by France's film classification commission, which was criticized by Catholic groups in the country.
Work conditions
After the film's release, controversy emerged after anonymous comments attributed to the animators on a Cartoon Brew article suggested that the animators at Nitrogen Studios worked under poor conditions and were forced by co-director Greg Tiernan to work overtime for free. A total of 36 of the 83 animators were blacklisted and went uncredited in the film, believed to be due to their complaints; comments made in anonymous interviews by some of the animators involved in the project by Variety, The Washington Post, and The Hollywood Reporter alleged that the comments were accurate. All the animators in the film were reportedly told outright that they would be blacklisted if they did not work overtime without pay. In late March 2019, the British Columbia Employment Standards Branch ruled that workers were entitled to receive overtime pay for their work on the film.Music
The film's score was composed by Alan Menken and Christopher Lennertz. The soundtrack was released on August 5, 2016, by Madison Gate Records and Sony Music Masterworks.Track listing
Release
A rough cut of the film was shown at the South by Southwest Film Festival on March 14, 2016. The final cut of the film screened at Just for Laughs on July 30, 2016. The film was theatrically released in the United States and Canada on August 12, 2016. The film was released in the United Kingdom on September 2, 2016.Sausage Party was released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on 4k Blu-Ray, Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download on November 8, 2016.
Reception
Box office
Sausage Party grossed $97.7 million in North America and $42.8 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $140.4 million, against a budget of $19 million. The film is the highest grossing R-rated animated film of all time, replacing , and made a net profit of $47.06 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.In the United States and Canada, Sausage Party was released on August 12, 2016, alongside Pete's Dragon and Florence Foster Jenkins, and was initially projected to gross $15–20 million from 2,805 theaters in its opening weekend. However, after grossing $3.3 million from Thursday night previews and $13.5 million on its first day, weekend projections were increased to $30–35 million. The film ended up grossing $33.6 million in its opening weekend, finishing second at the box office, behind Suicide Squad.
Outside North America, the biggest markets are the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, Germany, Russia and Israel, where the film grossed $10.2 million, $6.8 million, $4.1 million, $3.5 million $2.6 million and $2 million respectively.
Critical response
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 83% based on 230 reviews, with an average rating of 6.84/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Sausage Party is definitely offensive, but backs up its enthusiastic profanity with an impressively high laugh-to-gag ratio – and a surprisingly thought-provoking storyline." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 66 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.Vince Mancini of Uproxx wrote that "Sausage Partys most charming quality is that it feels exactly like a group of 13-year-olds trying to entertain themselves, with excessive C-bombs and constant groan-worthy food puns." Richard Roeper gave the film three out of four stars, saying: "Despite all the cursing and envelope-pushing and bat-bleep crazy sexual stuff, Sausage Party isn't mean-spirited. It's just… stupid. But also pretty smart. And funny as hell." Lindsey Bahr of Associated Press gave the film a positive review, writing: "There is no one out there making comedies quite like Rogen and Goldberg. They are putting their definitive stamp on the modern American comedy one decency-smashing double entendre at a time."