Marlton Movie - The Motion Picture

Marlton Movie - The Motion Picture is a 2019 American animated/live-action satirical comedy film based on the Kingson animated series Marlton. Directed by series creator Ralf Hat, and written by him and series co-writer Dab Mcgee, the film features the regular cast of Brandon Soo Hoo, Jorge Diaz, Ralf Hat, Jeremy Shada, and Jack DeSena. In the film, aspiring filmmaker Steven Nguyen resolves to create his own cinematic masterpiece with his group of friends; which soon causes a "rift" in the fourth wall that they must fix when it begins distorting their world. The film satirizes the film industry, the modern cinematic climate as well as film culture as a whole - whilst staying true to the original series' brand of humor and satire. The film was released on July 26, 2019, grossed $75 million worldwide on a $20 million budget and received positive reviews from critics. A sequel, entitled Marlton Movie Sequel (The Sequel), is scheduled for release on July 15, 2022.

Synopsis
Unimpressed by modern cinema, aspiring director Steven Nguyen, with the assistance of acquaintances from school, participate in a local film festival and set out to make their own cinematic masterpiece to combat modern Hollywood and everything it stands for. However, as production continues, the film they make soon proves to have reality-warping, genre-defying & world-ending consequences that will unfold the very fabric of Marlton as they know it - figuratively and literally.

Cast

 * Brandon Soo Hoo as Steven Nguyen, an aspiring filmmaker and film fanboy.
 * Jorge Diaz as Chester Jefferson, a highly pretentious child prodigy
 * Ralf Hat as Mike Aski and Paltu "Whitey" Rasheed
 * Jeremy Shada as Ryan Pearce
 * Jack DeSena as Eli Miller
 * Glenn Howerton as Humphrey Reginald, a pretentious film student who serves as the boy's rival in the film festival.
 * Jordan Peele as Quentin Spielberg Hitchcock Kubrick Coppola, a world famous film director who hosts the film festival.
 * Charlyne Yi as Sandy Lin
 * Alyson Stoner as Alexie Klausner
 * Mike Erwin as Chadley Evans
 * Tress MacNeille as Eloise Jefferson
 * Alexander Polinsky and Ryan Reynolds as Rad Boy Jenkins. Polinsky reprises his role from the television series during the first half of the film, but towards the climax is inexplicitly replaced with Reynolds.
 * Michael Argot as a fictionalized version of himself.

Development
Kingson had approached Marlton creator Michael Argot for a potential film adaptation of Marlton during the airing of the show's fifth season in October 2015. Originally conceived as a 68-minute television film, Argot later realized the creative potential of the project and began further negotiations with Kingson to potentially give it a theatrical release with an increased budget.

Home media
Marlton Movie - The Motion Picture was released on Digital HD on October 15, 2019, and on DVD and Blu-ray on October 29, 2019 by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. It includes audio commentary from Argot and Mcgee, as well as an extended cut of the film titled The Steven Cut featuring 10 minutes of deleted scenes and storyboards reworked into the film.

Box office
In the United States and Canada, Marlton Movie - The Motion Picture was released alongside Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and was initially projected to gross $10-12 million from 3,138 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $6.4 million on opening day, including $1.5 million from Thursday night previews, opening in third place, and went on to debut to $15.1 million, finishing third behind Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Lion King. The film grossed $7.6 million in its second weekend, dropping 49% and finishing in fourth place. It went on to gross $46.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $27.3 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $74.1 million against a production budget of $20 million.

Critical reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 92%, based on 131 reviews, and an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Marlton Movie - The Motion Picture elevates the metafictional mayhem of its television counterpart to new comedic heights, resulting in a delightfully madcap Hollywood potshot that will entertain fans as well as the uninitiated." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.