Nickelodeon Movies is, as the name suggests, a film production subset of Nickelodeon and a unit of Paramount Pictures. They have made theatrical and direct-to-streaming films, both based on their TV shows and original projects, some of which eventually spun off into their own shows.
While there were certain made-for-TV movies such as A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner! and Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus, they were not produced by Nickelodeon Movies, but rather their respective original Nickelodeon studios.
History
Following their success on their three animated series: Doug, Rugrats and The Ren & Stimpy Show, Nickelodeon hooked up a distribution deal with Twentieth Century Fox in 1993 to produce feature films. However, the films would been newly produced material but a channel execute pointed out of making films from their shows at that time. Everything changed during 1994 when Nick's parent company Viacom purchased Paramount Communications, Paramount decided to distribute the films instead. Paramount and Nickelodeon agreed to start development on a Rugrats film at that time. In 1995, Nickelodeon Movies (which is a unit of Paramount itself) was established.List of films
Movies based on Nickelodeon shows
Animated films
- The Rugrats Movie (1998)
- Rugrats in Paris (2000)
- Hey Arnold! The Movie (2002)
- The Wild Thornberrys Movie (2002)
- Rugrats Go Wild! (2003; Crossover between Rugrats and the Wild Thornberrys)
- The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004)
- The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water (2015)
- The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020; was scheduled for a theatrical release but was pulled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, however it released in Canada in August of that year then releaed in the US in 2021 on Paramount+)
- The Loud House Movie (2021; scheduled for a theatrical release in 2020 but was moved to Netflix instead)
- PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021)
- PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (2023)
- Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie (2022; released on Netflix)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)
- The Casagrandes Movie (2024)
Live-action films
- Good Burger (1997)
- The Last Airbender (2010)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016)
- Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019)
- Blue's Big City Adventure (2022; released on Paramount+)
Movies adapted into Nickelodeon shows
- Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001)
- Barnyard (2006)
Other movies
Animated films
- Rango (2011)
- The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
- Wonder Park (2019; a series based on the show entitled Adventures in Wonder Park was scheduled for production but due to the film's poor performance and the director being fired for sexual abuse it probably won't happen.)
- Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (2022; released in other territories by several distributors)
Live-action films
- Harriet the Spy (1996; first movie under Nick's banner. Another adaptation, Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars was later produced for Disney Channel)
- Snow Day (2000)
- Clockstoppers (2002)
- A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
- Mad Hot Ballroom (2005; first, and so far only, documentary film)
- Yours, Mine, and Ours (2005)
- Nacho Libre (2006)
- Charlotte's Web (2006)
- Shredderman Rules (2007)
- The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)
- Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008)
- Hotel for Dogs (2009)
- Imagine That (2009)
- Fun Size (2012)
- Monster Trucks (2016)
- Playing With Fire (2019)
- The J-Team (2021; released on Paramount+)
- Fantasy Football (2022, released on Paramount+)
- Snow Day 2022 (2022, released on Paramount+)
- Zoey 102 (2023, released on Paramount+)
Upcoming films
- Upcoming SpongeBob films:
- Saving Bikini Bottom The Sandy Cheeks Movie (2024, for Netflix)note
- The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants (2025)
- Aang: The Last Airbender
- Upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films:
- Untitled third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live-action film
- Untitled animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem sequel
- Untitled Tintin sequel
- Yokai Samba
Cancelled films
- Bone (Rejected due to author Jeff Smith not wanting the film to use pop music by Britney Spears)
- Prometheus and Bob (Cancelled due to a lack of interest and reworked into Gulliver's Travels (2010))
- Sector 7 (Based on the titular book series and was cancelled due to being stuck in Development Hell)
- Ectokid (Cancelled as of November 2018 for unknown reasons)
- Giant Monsters Attack Japan (Originally announced in 2006 as a live-action Nickelodeon Movies production from Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the film moved to Paramount Animation in 2015 with a script written by Matt Lieberman.)
- Jimmy Neutron 2: The Search for Carl (Cancelled because 1. the writers couldn't figure out a story and 2. because of the TV series, there was a lack of incentive since the audience could simply watch Jimmy Neutron at home. The plot was later reworked into the Game Boy Advance version of Jimmy Neutron vs. Jimmy Negatron)
- Sequels to A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Last Airbender
- Films based on The Fairly OddParents!, Henry Danger, and Are You Afraid of the Dark? (the former was scrapped due to management changes, making The Fairly OddParents the only of Nick's Long Runners to not get a theatrical movie release, the middle was scrapped due to Dan Schneider leaving the studio, and the third was adapted into a three-episode revival miniseries)
- Mighty Mouse (moved to Paramount Animation)
- Live-action Rugrats film (pulled by Paramount in favor of WWE's new feature Rumble, with a CGI reboot announced at the same time of the movie's original announcement still going forward)
Nickelodeon Movies provides examples of:
- Logo Joke: It was a tradition to have a different opening logo in the studio's early years:
- Harriet the Spy has a rhino running and stumbling on a prop before crashing into the screen and hanging on to the Nickelodeon logo.
- Good Burger: A cup gets filled with an orange milkshake or soda, then drives around like a race car until it stops, spills over to reveal the Nickelodeon logo.
- Snow Day: A man is shoveling snow in front of his house with his dog when a giant ball with the Nick logo crashes on top of his house, startling the man and his dog.
- Rugrats movies:
- The Rugrats Movie features Slap T. Pooch from Oh Yeah! Cartoons messing around with an orange speck before a giant foot steps on him, leaving behind the Nick logo.
- Rugrats in Paris has one similar to the Snow Day one, except the man is now stereotypically French, he is raking leaves instead of shoveling snow, and it's clearly set in France with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Also, after the full logo appears, his dog comes back to bark.
- Rugrats Go Wild! (as well as Hey Arnold! The Movie): The logo is set up like three planets, to homage 2001: A Space Odyssey, followed by a sneeze turning it into the logo.
- Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius has Goddard following the Nick ball as it bounces around, then projects the Movies ball alongside it.
- Clockstoppers has the Nick movies logo swaying around like a pendulum in a grandfather clock to emphasize the film's theme on time.
- The Wild Thornberrys Movie: A dog is sniffing at the camera, which cuts to the Nickelodeon Movies logo on the ground. It cuts to the dog again licking it up.
- SpongeBob SquarePants movies:
- The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie has a colorful explosion, then a blue sphere (possibly a shout-out to the Nickelodeon Pinball logo), a rose blooms as an orange blimp flies through it, followed by kaleidoscope view of goldfish and finally has the Nick bubble and the Movies bubble floating to place in the orange sea.
- The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water: The logo rises out of the ocean, covered in kelp and coral.
- The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run: This variant begins when SpongeBob shouts his Catchphrase offscreen ("I'm ready!"). He then pulls down a lever after some difficulty, shooting an electrified bust of the brand's iconic green slime through a pipe attached onto the logo. The logo's lights turn on, one after the other, and the dark walls fall down to reveal a purple sky. The Nickelodeon blimp passes by, shooting a 2D green slime projectile that forms the word "Movies" below the logo. It ends when SpongeBob sings the last notes of the logo's theme. This variant was used in later Nick movies like PAW Patrol: The Movie and The Loud House Movie but it removes SpongeBob's dialogue and replaces it with a more audible "ding!" sound.
- The logo before Nacho Libre zooms around a wrestling ring, then zooms in on a wrestling bell painted like the Nickelodeon Movies logo, which rings twice.
- Hotel for Dogs: The Nick splat transitions into a sun, segueing into the film.
- The Last Airbender: The logo is created by flames.
