SpongeBob SquarePants Sandy Cheeks Getting Live-Action/Animated Hybrid Spinoff Movie

Every SpongeBob SquarePants fan's favorite squirrel, Sandy Cheeks, is getting her own spinoff movie. SpongeBob SquarePants is Nickelodeon's longest-running cartoon. The series first aired in 1999 and is still running today. The animated kids' comedy follows an always-optimistic, yellow sponge named SpongeBob SquarePants who notoriously lives in a pineapple under the sea. The series also follows a quirky ensemble of an endearingly dopey starfish named Patrick, Sandy the tough-as-nails, astronaut suit-wearing squirrel, SpongeBob's grouchy neighbor, Squidward, and many more.

The success of the original SpongeBob SquarePants series has led to numerous spinoffs. The first-ever SpongeBob SquarePants movie was aptly titled, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, and hit theaters in 2004. A second movie came a little over ten years later in 2015, titled The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. The third and final movie, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, released on Paramount+ in 2020. While SpongeBob found plenty of success at the box office, the series was also adapted into a Broadway musical and several video games. The most recent SpongeBob spinoffs include the prequel TV series, Kamp Koral, and the upcoming Patrick spinoff titled, The Patrick Star Show.

Collider reveals that Sandy Cheeks is getting her own spinoff feature. The film will be a hybrid of live-action and animation. Sandy the squirrel will remain in her animated form while her environment will be in live-action. The film will reportedly be made for a streaming platform. Which streaming platform hasn't been revealed, but Paramount+ is the most probable since it belongs to Nickelodeon's parent company, ViacomCBS. Production is reportedly set to start in Mexico in August. While Collider obtained the news from a reliable source, Nickelodeon has yet to confirm the spinoff movie.

Sandy Cheeks' upcoming spinoff feature reportedly has a promising creative team. The screenplay was reportedly penned by longtime SpongeBob writer and storyboard director, Kaz. He co-wrote the film with Tom J. Stern, who was behind the live-action special, SpongeBob Appreciation Day. It is worth noting that Stern listed two "new SpongeBob projects" under his credits on his personal website. The first ended up being SpongeBob Appreciation Day and the second will likely be the Sandy Cheeks feature. Since these two have both worked on projects involving the yellow sea sponge, the film has a good chance of being a hit. Additionally, Liza Johnson will reportedly be directing. While SpongeBob seems to be outside of her typical realm of expertise, Johnson is a skilled and seasoned director.

This Sandy Cheeks spinoff is the first of its kind for the franchise. While the franchise has three movies under its belt and an upcoming spinoff series with The Patrick Star Show, this will be the franchise's first spinoff movie starring a supporting character. Sandy Cheeks will serve as a guinea pig, as opposed to a squirrel, for this upcoming spinoff series in the sense that if it's successful, Nickelodeon may want to create spinoff movies for the rest of the quirky SpongeBob ensemble. SpongeBob SquarePants fans will have to stay tuned for official confirmation of the Sandy Cheeks movie from Nickelodeon.