Over the Hedge

Over the Hedge is a 2006 American computer animated family comedy film based on the characters from United Media comic strip of the same name. Directed by Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick, and produced by Bonnie Arnold, it was released in the United States on May 19, 2006.

Plot
Traveling raccoon con artist, RJ, arrives in a woods outside a human city in the Midwest, excited about the wonders that living near humans can bring hungry animals. What he finds, however, is an Amish-like community that is deathly afraid of humans, after their leader, Vern the tortoise (Shandling), has an encounter with human boys that terrifies him. Encouraged by RJ, however, the animals slowly venture over the hedge that separates them from the brand new suburban development that appeared over the winter while they were sleeping, and what RJ shows them is a whole new world where humans leave tin cans full of fish and other food in big canisters, ripe for the taking. As they get closer and closer to humans, however, their comfortable lives in the woods appears to be threatened...

Trivia
Bruce Willis replaced Jim Carrey as the voice of RJ. Gene Wilder was offered a prominent role but declined. The makers originally wanted Bill Murray and Harold Ramis to voice RJ and Verne, respectively. Hammy suggests calling the hedge "Steve", saying that "Steve is a nice name". Hammy is voiced by Steve Carell. Took a crew of 237 more than three years to finish the film. The 'forest side' of the hedge is based on the hedge in front of the building where the Dreamworks studio is run. The exterior of the hedge is based on the vines growing in their parking garage. The hedge is approximately 7 feet tall. Live-action reference of fountains, willow trees, hedges, bottles shattering and umbrellas were used in designing the looks for the movie. The art department went to a bowling alley to sketch the design of the 'perfect' vending machine. They went to various supermarkets to sketch chip bags and bottles. They eventually got kicked out of a Safeway because the manager felt uncomfortable with them being there for such an extended amount of time. Based on "Over the Hedge", a syndicated comic strip written and drawn by Michael Fry and T. Lewis. It tells the story of a raccoon named RJ and a turtle named Verne who come to terms with their woodlands being taken over by suburbia, trying to survive the increasing flow of humanity and technology while becoming enticed by it at the same time. Four collections have been published: Over The Hedge, Over The Hedge 2, Over The Hedge 3: Knights of the Picnic Table and Over The Hedge: Stuffed Animals. Sean Yazbeck (BBQ Barry) and Lee Bienstock (Lunch Table Larry) appeared in the film as a reward for winning their assigned task on the NBC TV series The Apprentice. Whenever RJ is searching through his bag, he occasionally tosses out (among other things) an audio CD. Looking close in multiple shots, you can see it's a John Tesh CD which apparently sold for 10 cents. Gladys, played by Allison Janney, was originally a Real Estate Agent, but was changed to the president of the Homeowners Association to add to the story. Dave Morehead, an animator of Over the Hedge, created reference footage by putting a camera on the back of his friend's dog and letting it run around his house. This gave the layout artists some great ideas about scale, animals' perspective, and how animals moved. In addition, the layout team compared a house to an apartment building and a kitchen to a cathedral. The stackable potato chips branded Spuddies in the film is a spoof of Pringles chips. In an early trailer, the chip brand was known as Jingles and featured the Pringles logo with a court jester's cap on. The logo of Dwayne LaFontaine, the Verminator's pest and vermin control company, featuring a man resembling himself hitting a rabbit with a hammer, is a spoof of a pest control company in California, Nevada, and Arizona, Western Extermination Company, whose logo features a man named Kernel Kleenup with a top hat and suit about to squash a rat with his hammer. According to the film makers on the DVD commentary, the movie originally opened with RJ sneaking into Vincent the Bear's cave to steal his food. But then they quickly realized that they were beginning with something more suspenseful so they invented the "Vending Machine" sequence at almost the last minute. Pay close attention to the porcupine kids after Ozzie's melodramatic performance in the streets. As they declare "Props for the OzzMan!!", they're holding their hands in the "Horned Devil" gesture which is done by fans of heavy metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne. To prepare for his role as Vincent the Bear, Nick Nolte researched information about bears in order to give the right vocal tone and performance to his character. A Wal-Mart cross-promotion ad was once aired in advance of the film's release, but was quickly pulled after the comic strips author's-Fry, Michael and Lewis, T-objected to it, citing Wal-Mart's anti-environmental activities as the reason for their objection. When Hammy gives RJ the Energy drink, saying, "I'm not supposed to have this", he sits down and starts to sip on a juice box. If you look closely, you can see enough letters to make out the name on the juice box as "Nearly Juice", possibly a joke on the FDA's "restriction" that you can only call something a "fruit juice" drink if it has at least 10% real juice.

Box office
The film was screened out of competition at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. On opening weekend, the film was in second place to The DaVinci Code, but its gross of $38,457,003 did not quite live up to DreamWorks Animation's other titles released over the past few years. The film had a per-theater average of $9,474 from 4,059 theaters. In its second weekend, the film dropped 30% to $27,063,774 for a $6,612 average from an expanded 4,093 theaters and finishing third, behind X-Men: The Last Stand and The DaVinci Code. Since it was Memorial Day Weekend, the film grossed a total of $35,322,115 over the four-day weekend, resulting in only an 8% slide. In its third weekend, the film held well with a 24% drop to $20,647,284 and once again placing in third behind The Break-Up and X-Men: The Last Stand, for a $5,170 average from 3,993 theaters. The film closed on September 4, 2006 after 112 days of release, grossing $155,019,340 domestically along with $180,983,656 overseas for a worldwide total of $336,002,996. Produced on an $80 million budget, the film was a commercial success.

Henry's copy
Henry has the 2006 DVD of this movie from DreamWorks Animation SKG Home Entertainment. It has previews of Flushed Away. The special features on it are Hammy's Boomerang Adventure, Dwayne's Verm-Tech Infomercial, an insider's look behind the hedge, tons of nutty games and activities, Wake Up more hibernating features, and other stuff.