Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies unfurled the first teaser for “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” on Wednesday, giving fans their earliest look at the irrepressible fry cook’s return to the big screen. The 90-second spot sets sail for the high seas—and an underworld lit by ghostly green fire—ahead of the film’s theatrical release on December 19, 2025.
Series stalwarts Tom Kenny, Bill Fagerbakke, Clancy Brown, Rodger Bumpass, Carolyn Lawrence and Mr. Lawrence reprise their roles, joined by Regina Hall, George Lopez, Sherry Cola, Arturo Castro and rapper Ice Spice, who will also contribute a new song. Mark Hamill voices the Flying Dutchman, whom he calls “the most fearsome goofball pirate you’ve ever seen… inspired silliness from start to finish.”
Directed by long-time franchise hand Derek Drymon from a screenplay by Pam Brady and Matt Lieberman, the adventure finds SpongeBob pursuing the Dutchman to prove his bravery to Mr. Krabs. Speaking at the Annecy Animation Festival last month, Drymon said the project felt “like coming home,” while artwork previewed carnival-land set pieces and the deepest trench yet explored in the series.
The film was originally pencilled in for May but shifted to the coveted Christmas corridor after last year’s SAG-AFTRA strike reshuffled Paramount’s slate. The new date places the PG title opposite “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and other holiday tent-poles; Danish outlet Gamereactor has already tipped the yellow sponge as the season’s “likely box-office titan.”
Veteran composer John Debney returns to score the feature, and the teaser’s painterly 3D-meets-2D aesthetic suggests the filmmakers are keeping one foot in the hand-drawn world that Stephen Hillenburg imagined 25 years ago. Paramount insiders say animation is complete and that post-production now pivots to polishing visual effects and Ice Spice’s end-credit single.
