Trivia / The Powerpuff Girls Movie

• Author's Saving Throw: The movie was made to give hardcore fans a Darker and Edgier Prequel that explains why the people of Townsville despised the girls at first and show Mojo Jojo as a legitimate threat rather than a comic foil.
• Box Office Bomb: Performed horribly at the box office due to very little advertising for the film outside the Cartoon Network channel (largely the fault of Warner Bros.). As well being paired against Men in Black II, a hotly anticipated sequel at the time, on opening weekend plus waning interest in the series. In some countries, such as Japan, it was released Direct to Video.
• Creator Backlash: Craig McCracken doesn't outright hate the movie, but has come to think the tone was excessively dark.
• Creator Killer: The film's failure was one of the many which caused WB's parent company, AOL Time Warner, to take AOL out of their name and generally minimize the company's presence the year after the film's release (though they weren't able to sell it off until 2009).
• Distanced from Current Events: The fact that the film was released about a year after the 9/11 attacks is often believed to be a contributor to its financial failure, seeing as how the film features the destruction of a big city and a lot of general violence.
• DVD Commentary: Done by Creator & Director Craig McCracken, Art Director Mike Moon, and Bubbles, Blossom, Buttercup, The Mayor, and Mojo Jojo.
• Follow the Leader: One of several feature film spinoffs of popular animated shows in the late 90s green-lit in the wake of The Rugrats Movie's success.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: For unknown reasons, the film is unavailable for streaming or digital download, and has not been released to Blu-ray or any HD viewing. While the DVD is easy to find, it's an ancient 2002 disc with a pan-and-scan fullscreen presentation, with the original widescreen aspect ratio being unavailable. It has occasionally shown up on Hulu and Max but (as of July 2023) is not currently on either.
• Kids' Meal Toy: Jack in the Box sold a set of six toys; Punching Buttercup, Mojo Jojo's Volcano Viewer, Kung Fu Bubbles, Bulging Brains Mojo Jojo, Karate Kick Blossom, and Skyscraper Mo Mojo Jojo.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: Cartoon Network held a contest in which fans were encouraged to send in their own drawings of the girls and the Professor for a chance for it to appear in the movie. The two winning pieces show up as the crayon drawing Bubbles made that the Professor picks up after she falls asleep and the "wanted" poster that appears on the news.
• Screwed by the Network: Warner Bros. greenlit this movie in 2000 and budgeted it at $25 million. The film was completed for $11 million (leaving the other $14 million for them to sit on) and was released—despite heavy promotion on Cartoon Network to the point that even [adult swim] got involved—the same day that Men in Black II premiered in North America. It probably didn't help that WB's first live-action Scooby-Doo movie had just been released a few weeks prior and was already a huge hit, since it may have been occupying the studio's attention.
• Stillborn Franchise: The movie was intended to kickstart a series of movies based on Cartoon Network's other successful shows, most notably films based on Samurai Jack and Ed, Edd n Eddy. However, the movie's poor box office returns resulted in CN shuttering their plans for further films. Only two theatrical films based on Cartoon Network shows have been made since: Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters (technically an [adult swim] property produced entirely by the show's team on a modest budget and given a limited theatrical release by an independent distributor), and Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (which is really based on a Warner Bros. Animation/DC Entertainment property rather than a CN Original). An Adventure Time theatrical film was going to be made at one point, but fell into Development Hell. Any other movies based on CN shows have all been either made for TV or sent straight to digital platforms/retailers, and even TTG! to the Movies's sequel went Direct to Video. The Samurai Jack movie would be recobbled into the final season of the show in 2017, while the Ed, Edd n Eddy movie was eventually made for TV in 2009 as Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Craig McCracken originally pitched the movie to have the show's regular villains argue over who would rule Townsville. Craig found that it left little screen time for the girls, so he pitched the origin story.
  • The movie bore the secondary titles "First Flight" and "Maiden Voyage" during production.
  • McCracken has stated through his social media that he originally intended for the movie to be even darker, aiming to make it for "25-year-old guys". This was actually due to Cartoon Network and Warner Bros. going through the early phases of their experimental "adult animation" period that would lead to the creation of [adult swim] (other products of this including the likes of the John Kricfalusi-esque The Flintstones on the Rocks and the live action Scooby-Doo movie originally being intended for older audiences with an R rating). However Warner Bros. later backed down from this idea and requested the film be toned down to a PG rating (the Scooby Doo movie was similarly affected by having much of the adult humor cut out of the final film in order to get a PG rating).
  • It was planned for other shows such as Codename: Kids Next Door and Ed, Edd n Eddy to have theatrical films following this movie. But due to the film underperforming, Cartoon Network backed away from feature films and have since stuck with made-for-TV movies for their shows. This is also why the Samurai Jack Grand Finale movie languished in development hell for over a decade, before it was decided to produce a fifth season.
  • Craig asked Gorillaz if they could do a song for the film. But that never came to pass due to scheduling conflicts. They ended up making a cameo on a newspaper that Mojo is reading.
• Writer Revolt: When the film was greenlit, McCracken had become increasingly frustrated at the Misaimed Marketing, which passed PPG off as any other "girly" girls' show, with tie-in products such as makeup kits and jewelry, and sought to emphasize the show's roots as The Whoop Ass Girls by making the film as violent as possible. As stated above, he has since voiced regret about taking the movie in such a direction.

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