While fans of The Simpsons wait for a sequel to The Simpsons Movie since its release in 2007, it turns out one recent episode was pretty close to being the yellow animated characters return to the big screen.
When speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Al Jean, executive producer and showrunner for The Simpsons, admitted the episode "The Man Who Came to Be Dinner," where the yellow, four-fingered characters fly away to Rigel 7, the home planet of Kang and Kodos, was initially envisioned as the finale for season 24, but Jean and James L. Brooks, another executive producer, saw potential for it as a film.
"Two of the allures were exploring the rules of the new world and the cinematic nature of doing something in space," Jean told EW. "But then we were worried that people might think it’s an idea that’s not canonical—it doesn’t really happen, unlike all of other 560 episodes that really ‘happened’—so the ultimate decision was to air it as an episode."
As Jean explained, however, it didn't feel necessary to make this tale into a full feature film.
"It just got to the point where if we were unsure about it as a movie, then it would be good to air the episode," Jean continued. "And then if we do a movie, we’d just think of something else. So if you want to know what was thought of a possible Simpsons Movie 2, we just aired it—for free. You can see it for free!"
While this may not be the sequel to their hit movie, Jean is still debating making one. Although, as Jean said, his "guess is it's 50-50."
"Our feeling is that the first movie was pretty successful and we don’t want the second movie to be any less successful," Jean noted. "And I’m not talking about financially only—I’m also talking about no one wants to do a movie where people think, ‘Why did they do that? It wasn’t necessary.’"
Which is a fairly noble and considerate thing to said. At the very least, even as the show goes on and on, there is still respect for the audience. So long as they don't make another Simpsons/Family Guy crossover.
Image courtesy of INFphoto.com