Extra, Extra!: Adventure Time Gets Its Own Movie

In which I report on the latest in entertainment news.

Although it was easy to overlook with all of the other announcements about movies to come out last week , there was an especially juicy one for contemporary animation fans.  Although it had quietly been percolating behind the scenes for a while now, Warner Brothers is officially developing an Adventure Time movie.

Adventure Time, much like My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, has a perplexingly devoted adult following.  Sometimes awesome, sometimes terrible, but always weird, it follows the adventures of the last human - a boy named Finn - and his shapeshifting dog Jake in the post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo.  It's a series that indelicately toes the line between being a children's show with frequently adult themes and an frequently childish show for adults: with a heavily continuity-laden back story and richly developed setting.

Of what we currently know, the film will most importantly be animated  There will be no anxiety over who to cast as Finn or what the invariably CG Jake will look like.  And although the film has yet to be saddled with a director, we do know that veteran animator Chris McKay - best known for his direction of Morel Orel, Robot Chicken and The Lego Batman Movie - will be attached to the film in some capacity.  Roy Lee - best known for his involvement with the How to Train Your Dragon and Lego Movie franchises as well as most of the American remakes of foreign horror movies - will act as its producer.

There's no word yet on how the movie will tie into the ongoing series, but it can be assumed at this point to be a natural progression of the narrative thus far: nothing so entrenched in its sprawling canon to be inaccessible to mainstream audiences, but nothing so removed as to malign long-time fan.  Look at The Simpsons Movie for the likely model: something that can be easily gleaned and enjoyed by outsiders to the series, but which richly rewards devoted fans with canonical ties to the series and sly in-jokes.

So what do you think that the plot of the Adventure Time movie will be?

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