The original The Simpsons Movie was a labor of love. From early on in the series, the producers were eager to adapt the animated show for the big screen – creator Matt Groening had hoped it would “increase the show’s scale” – but initial attempts failed. There were plans to adapt early episodes like Kamp Krusty and A Fish Called Selma into feature-length films, but the team ran into difficulties expanding the stories to an appropriate size. For a time, there were even plans to create a live-action film based around Phil Hartman’s character, Troy McClure; unfortunately, these plans had to be canceled following Hartman’s death in 1998.
Nevertheless, after continued effort, the team finally began production on the film in 2006. The work wasn’t easy: the chosen script went under over 100 revisions, with many of the cast and writing staff having to work on the show and the movie at the same time, leading to numerous late nights and early mornings. However, their resolve paid off, as 2007’s The Simpsons Movie broke box-office records and earned rave reviews from critics.
Of course, with this level of success, audiences began to look into the future, eager for a The Simpsons Movie 2. Indeed, rumblings of a sequel have been in the air since 2014. Around then, Fox reportedly approached producer James L. Brooks, asking him to begin production on a follow-up feature – Brooks stated that he had turned them down due to having “other stuff” the team wanted to explore. From then on, though, the pressure only grew until 2017, when director David Silverman confirmed a sequel was in development.
However, since that revelation, it has been a tumultuous time for Simpsons team. Between 2019’s Fox-Disney merger and 2020’s Covid pandemic, the last few years haven’t been smooth sailing, with many predicting that these disruptions will have moved the sequel a few years down the line. Nevertheless, with Groening restating he had “no doubts” that Disney would want a sequel “very soon,” it has become a pertinent time to ask, how long until The Simpsons Movie 2?
Reportedly, the original film’s final script took three years to write, beginning conception in 2003 and stemming from an idea from Groening himself. Assuming a similar timeline from the announcement of the sequel, the film will finish being written in 2021, begin production in 2022 with a possible release late in 2023, although it is of course not that simple.
For one thing, there are reasons to believe that plans for a follow-up have been in-the-works far before then. For example, in 2014, the Season 26 episode, "The Man Who Came to be Dinner," was postponed for a year as the producers were considering adapting it into a full-blown sequel. This plan was eventually dropped, as Brooks was worried that the high-concept nature of the episode (the Simpson family being abducted by aliens) would mean the film couldn’t be “canonical” with the series. Either way, this admission by the producer reveals that story elements for a sequel film were being developed as early as 2014, perhaps indicating the wait won’t be as long the second time around.
On the other hand, though, many of the core team who worked on that first film may not be heavily involved with the sequel. Groening, for example, has stepped back from The Simpsons, focusing instead on new ventures like his Netflix series Disenchantment, and director David Silverman is reportedly working on a new 2021 film, the upcoming Extinct. This conflicting scheduling of key talent, paired with how the development of the first film was apparently so stressful and unpleasant that the team are reticent to repeat the process, might indicate that The Simpsons Movie 2 may have a more relaxed and incremental production.
Moreover, the situation is complicated further with the consideration of Disney+ and the current woeful state of the box-office. When Disney launched their flagship streaming service, a key draw for many consumers was the availability of The Simpsons on the platform (in fact, all but one episode is currently available). Equally, with box-office earnings reaching an all-time low due to the debilitating effect of the coronavirus, it’s likely that Disney would want to release a sequel through its streaming service, similarly to Pixar’s Soul on Christmas Day, rather than risk poor results in cinemas. With the studio desperately competing with Warner Bros., who are releasing their entire 2021 slate of blockbuster films onto HBOMax, perhaps Disney will seek to further boost Disney+ through solely releasing The Simpsons Movie 2 on that platform.
Above all else, the release date of the sequel to The Simpsons Movie is currently shrouded in mystery. Although conservative estimates can be made (namely for 2023 release), given the ongoing global pandemic, the increasingly heated streaming wars, the reticent pace of the Simpsons team, and the general dearth of information revealed, it’s difficult to accurately guess when The Simpsons Movie 2 will be released.