The Boss Baby

About

The Boss Baby is a 2017 computer animated family comedy film produced by Dreamworks Animation. The film stars Alec Baldwin as a secret agent baby who is sent on a mission in the war against babies and puppies. While his brother knows his true identity, the parents seem oblivious.

History

Dreamworks announced the film on March 12th, 2014, setting a March 8th, 2016 release date.^[1] On September they announced that Alec Baldwin would play the title role and Kevin Spacey would play the villain. However, after Spacey left and was replaced with Steve Buscemi, the release date was pushed back to March 31st, 2017. On October 17th, 2016, Dreamworks TV uploaded the trailer for the film to YouTube (shown below)

Reception

The Boss Baby was a box office success, grossing $50.2 million, $20 million more than its initial projection. It finished first at the box office in its debut weekend. Critics were mixed about the film. The film has a 53% on Rotten Tomatoes,^[2] and the site's consensus blurb reads "The Boss Baby's talented cast, glimmers of wit, and flashes of visual inventiveness can't make up for a thin premise and a disappointing willingness to settle for doody jokes." It has a 50/100 score on Metacritic,^[3] with the majority of reviews settling between scores of 40-60.

Oscar Nomination

On January 23rd, 2018, The Boss Baby was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Online, people reacted negatively to the nomination, many of which insisting that another film, Lego Batman was more deserving. Twitter ^[6] user @GriffLightning tweeted, OH, COOL, WE’RE JUST GOING TO NOMINATE FERDINAND AND THE BOSS BABY OVER THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE AND GO ON ACTING LIKE WE’RE A VAGUELY RESPECTABLE SOCIETY???" The tweet (shown below, left) received more than 1,000 retweets and 5,100 likes in less than 48 hours.

Twitter^[7] user @TweetsByTheTony tweeted, "I seriously doubt that any of you chuckleheads groaning about 'The Boss Baby' getting an Oscar nomination have actually seen it, because if you HAD you'd be much, much angrier." The tweet (shown below, center) received more than 110 retweets and 420 likes in 48 hours.

Additionally, Twitter^[8] user @john_tyler646 posted a gif of Adam Sandler from the film The Wedding Singer singing "Somebody kill me, please." They also added the caption "First, Academy Award-winning Suicide Squad. Now, Academy Award-nominated The Boss Baby." The post (shown below, right) received more than 60 retweets and 160 likes in two days.

Online Presence

The Boss Baby has a decent following online, gaining nearly 1.2 million likes on Facebook.^[5]

Calling The Boss Baby

In the film, the title character gives out his phone number in a scene. The film's marketing team made that phone number a real number one could call and talk to The Boss Baby. On April 17th, 2017, YouTuber Durv called the number in a video and spoke to a voice actor playing The Boss Baby on speakerphone, gaining over 1.6 million views (shown below).

This was the first of dozens of YouTube clickbait videos in which various YouTubers called The Boss Baby. The popularity of these videos soon inspired parodies in which the YouTubers reported that The Boss Baby would come to their house. YouTuber Eliscray uploaded a popular parody in which The Boss Baby came to his house and haunted it after he called it (shown below, top left). On April 30th, 2017, eminthrv posted an inquiry about the sudden surge of these videos to /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[4]

Some image macros have also been made parodying these videos by photoshopping the character into other popular YouTube clickbait tropes.

Search Interest

External References