The Ant Bully (film)

The Ant Bully
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John A. Davis
Screenplay by	John A. Davis
Based on	The Ant Bully by John Nickle
Produced by	Tom Hanks Gary Goetzman John A. Davis
Starring	Julia Roberts Nicolas Cage Meryl Streep Paul Giamatti Regina King Bruce Campbell Lily Tomlin
Edited by	Jon Price
Music by	John Debney
Production companies	Legendary Pictures Playtone DNA Productions
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	July 28, 2006 (2006-07-28)
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$50 million
Box office	$55.2 million

The Ant Bully is a 2006 American animated comedy film written and directed by John A. Davis and based on the 1999 children's book of the same name by John Nickle. Starring the voices of Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Paul Giamatti, Regina King, Bruce Campbell and Lily Tomlin, it was produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman's Playtone, Davis and Keith Alcorn's DNA Productions, and Legendary Pictures in their first animated film, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

Set in suburban Las Vegas, The Ant Bully follows Lucas Nickle (Zach Tyler Eisen), a 10-year-old destructive boy who is neglected by his family (Cheri Oteri and Larry Miller) and bullied by Steve (Myles Jeffrey) and his friends (Jake T. Austin). He attacks the nearby ant colony out of frustration, but Zoc (Cage), a wizard ant, creates a potion to shrink Lucas. After being shrunk by Zoc, Lucas must join forces with his new friends (Roberts, King, and Campbell) to defeat Stan Beals (Giamatti), an exterminator who threatens their colony upon signing the contract.

It was the last film role by Ricardo Montalbán, before his death on January 14, 2009. Released on July 28, 2006, The Ant Bully received mixed reviews from critics, with praise aimed at the vocal performances, animation, music, and humor, but criticism for its dialogue and script, its lack of faithfulness to the source material and the execution of its premise. However, it was a box-office bomb, grossing $55.2 million against its $50 million budget. Due to this, most of the DNA employees were laid off and the studio was closed.

Plot

10-year-old Lucas Nickle is left with his older sister and grandmother when his parents go to Puerto Vallarta for their wedding anniversary. Neglected by his family and tormented by a bully named Steve, Lucas takes his anger out on an anthill in his front yard. Zoc, an eccentric sorcerer ant, wants to fight back, while Hova, a nurse ant who is fascinated with humans, wishes to communicate with Lucas. The leaders of the colony decide to use a potion of Zoc's creation to shrink Lucas down to ant size.

The local exterminator, Stan Beals, convinces Lucas to sign a contract to kill the vermin. Later that night, Zoc and a troop of ants administer the potion into Lucas's ear while he sleeps, leaving him naked and miniature. Carried to the anthill, Lucas faces trial. Zoc insists that Lucas be studied and eaten, but the Queen sentences Lucas to hard labor. Hova volunteers to train Lucas, alongside her friends Kreela and Fugax. When the ants are attacked by tarantula hawks, Lucas uses a discarded firecracker to frighten them away, earning the respect of all but Zoc.

Lucas is shown paintings of the Ant Mother, who is prophesied to return to the colony and provide sustenance, and the Cloud-Breather, an ominous figure who heralds death. Recognizing the Cloud-Breather as Beals, Lucas convinces Hova, Fugax, and Kreela to visit his house and collect jelly beans. There, he attempts to terminate Beals' contract, but unknowingly calls a pizzeria instead. Upon their return, Zoc intimidates Lucas into running away, and Lucas is swallowed by a frog. Zoc frees Lucas by making the frog burp, and they start to bond.

The next day, Beals arrives to exterminate the colony, and Lucas and Zoc enlist the wasps' aid. During the battle with Beals, Lucas saves the lives of Hova and an injured wasp. Just as Beals is about to douse the anthill with pesticide, a beetle bites him in the crotch, causing him to double over. Lucas, Zoc, and Hova injects Beals with the shrinking potion, leaving him severely disfigured. He escapes on a tricycle, pursued by the wasps.

The Queen pronounces Lucas an ant for his heroic actions, naming him "Rokai", and Zoc gives him the antidote. Lucas returns to normal size, and finally stands up to Steve, whose friends turn on him. Lucas then showers the colony with jelly beans as a parting gift.

Voice cast

• Julia Roberts as Hova, a nurse ant who becomes a mentor to Lucas Nickle and Zoc’s girlfriend.
• Nicolas Cage as Zoc, a wizard ant and Hova’s boyfriend.
• Meryl Streep as The Queen Ant, leader of the Ant colony.
• Paul Giamatti as Stan Beals, a local exterminator.
• Regina King as Kreela, a forager ant that forages.
• Bruce Campbell as Fugax, a scout ant that scouts.
• Lily Tomlin as Mommo, Lucas' grandmother.
• Zach Tyler Eisen as Lucas Nickle, a 10-year-old boy who is always bullied.
• Cheri Oteri as Doreen Nickle, Lucas' mother.
• Larry Miller as Fred Nickle, Lucas' father.
• Allison Mack as Tiffany Nickle, Lucas' older sister.
• Ricardo Montalbán as The Head of Council.
• Myles Jeffrey as Steve, the local neighborhood bully who loves to pick on Lucas.
• Jake T. Austin as Nicky, a neighborhood boy who originally acts under Steve's lead.
• Rob Paulsen as Beetle.
• S. Scott Bullock as Glow Worm that glows in the night time.
• Mark DeCarlo as Fly who has wings.
• Richard Green as Wasp Leader, leader of a group of wasps who oppose the ants but becomes an ally later on.
• Don Frye as Soldier Ant
• Creagen Dow as Mullet Boy

Additional voices were provided by Tyler James Williams, Jake Goldberg, Austin Majors, Jaishon Fisher, Tom Kenny, Neil Ross, Bob Joles, Wally Wingert, Leon Morenzie, Johnathan Cook, Clive Robertson, S. Scott Bullock, Susan Silo, Zack Shada, Max Burkholder, Benjamin Bryan, Jordan Orr, Candi Milo, Nika Futterman, Colin Ford, Nicole Sullivan, Pat Fraley, Paul Greenberg and David Kaye.

Production

Tom Hanks originally conceived the idea for an animated film adaptation after reading the book with his child. He then sent a copy to John A. Davis due to Davis' work on the animated film Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. Davis came up with a potential take on the story within a few days. "To be honest, when I first looked at it, I thought Oh, why does it have to be ants again?" said Davis. "But the more I thought about it, I said, So what? It's got as much to do with The Incredible Shrinking Man as it does the other bug movies. It's a completely different story."

Hanks agreed that the story could be expanded considerably (the original book being around only 2,000 words). Keith Alcorn had a similar initial reaction to the project as Davis did. "My first thought," recalled Alcorn, "was, 'not another ant movie.' But looking at the actual story, this was really about a little boy and how he learns about the world by having to live beneath the surface." Davis states that he felt like something of a hypocrite when, while he was working on the script, carpenter ants infested his house and he called an exterminator.

The film was rendered on DNA Productions' 1400-CPU render farm, managed by the open-source Sun Grid Engine job scheduler. The nodes started out with Fedora Core 2 Linux with a modern 2.6.x kernel, but the new AMD Opteron nodes are running Fedora Core 4. Most of the applications are commercial, including Maya, Lightwave 3D, Houdini, Massive and Pixar’s RenderMan.

Along with the theatrical release of The Ant Bully, an IMAX 3D version was presented in only some of the IMAX theaters. The others continued to run the 3D version of Superman Returns. The special IMAX 3D version was remastered in three dimensions with IMAX DMR. Critics within the 3D motion-picture community have given the film high marks, as unlike Superman Returns, the entire film is projected in 3D stereo. The process to turn a pure animation film into 3D is much simpler than converting a film having live actors. Some of the production took place at C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures in Canada.

Release

The film was theatrically released on July 28, 2006 by Warner Bros. Pictures, and was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 28, 2006, by Warner Home Video.

Reception

Critical response

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 62% approval rating, based on 118 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The website's consensus reads, "Sometimes inventive and witty, this animated adventure into an ant-sized world is a pleasant diversion." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 59/100 based on 26 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A−" on scale of A to F.

Tom Long of the Detroit News wrote, "there's a sweet simplicity and humility to this film."

Ruthe Stein of The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that "the brilliance of The Ant Bully is in the crafty way it delves into the minds of ants as they plot to save themselves from extermination...Davis creates a marvelously labyrinthine society for them, right below the surface of a bland suburb."

Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly liked Roberts and Cage in their roles, and referred to Streep's queen ant as "excellently magisterial". She also wrote that "the kind of life lessons that usually gum up the fun go down as easily as jelly beans in The Ant Bully." Jeffrey E. McCants of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote that "the film's heavy-handed lessons turn it from a fun romp through a cartoonish insect world to a predictable and preachy snoozefest".

Bill Muller of The Arizona Republic wrote, "The Ant Bully, in trying to match Antz or A Bug's Life, just digs itself into a big hole."

Jack Mathews of the New York Daily News was positive about the film's lack of pop-culture references and thought that the film does not "talk down" to children. Additionally, he noted, "adults may be amused (or maybe not) by the Christian parallel in the ants' religion."

Box office

The film opened at number five on July 28, 2006, and closed on November 16, 2006, with $28 million in North America and a total of $55 million worldwide. The estimated production budget was $50 million. The film was released in the United Kingdom on August 4, 2006, and only opened at number eight.

Music

The Ant Bully: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Film score by John Debney
Released	August 1, 2006
Recorded	2006
Genre	Film Score
Length	57:41
Label	Varèse Sarabande
Producer	John Debney
John Debney chronology
Chicken Little (2005) The Ant Bully: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2006) Barnyard (2006)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic

The soundtrack's music score was composed and conducted by John Debney, who previously worked with Davis on Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. This film has no songs.

Video game

Main article: The Ant Bully (video game)

Games publisher Midway released The Ant Bully, the official video game tie-in to the film on GameCube, PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows, and Game Boy Advance on July 24, 2006. A Wii version was released on December 5, 2006. The game was developed by the Montreal Studio Artificial Mind and Movement.

See also

• List of films featuring miniature people
• FernGully: The Last Rainforest

External links

• Official website
• "The Ant Bully - Production Notes" (PDF). Warner Brothers. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 29, 2007. Retrieved March 11, 2015.
• The Ant Bully at AllMovie
• The Ant Bully at IMDb
• The Ant Bully at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Ant Bully at Box Office Mojo