Sausage Party

Plot

A supermarket called Shopwell's is filled with anthropomorphic grocery items that worship the human shoppers as gods who take groceries to a utopia known as the "Great Beyond" when they are purchased. Among the groceries in the store is a sausage named Frank, who has dreams of living with his hot dog bun girlfriend, Brenda, in the Great Beyond, where they can finally consummate their relationship.

After Frank and Brenda's packages are chosen by a woman named Camille Toh to leave Shopwell's, a returned jar of Bickle's Honey Mustard tries to warn the groceries that the Great Beyond is a lie; nobody listens except for Frank. Honey Mustard calls on Frank to seek out a bottle of liquor named Firewater, and then falls to his death. This creates an accidental cart collision that causes Frank, Brenda, and several groceries to fall out, including an agressive douche who gets his nozzle bent, and plots revenge against Frank and Brenda.

Seeking to verify Honey Mustard's warning, Frank leads Brenda, a lavash named Kareem Abdul lavash, and a bagel named Sammy Bagel Jr. to the store's liquor aisle under the guise of taking a shortcut to their proper aisles. There, he smokes cannabis out of a kazoo and learns from Firewater that he and other non-perishable foods invented the story of the Great Beyond as a noble lie to assuage past foods' fears of being eaten by shoppers. Frank, vowing to reveal the truth to the groceries, is encouraged to travel beyond the store's freezer section to find proof. While waiting for Frank, Brenda and the others are led into the Mexican aisle by a bottle of tequila, where they meet Teresa, a taco who falls in love with Brenda on sight.

Meanwhile at Camille's house, Frank's friends Carl and deformed sausage Barry are horrified as they witness the other purchased foods being cooked and eaten by Camille, shown from the foods' perspective as a brutal murder. Carl and Barry attempt to escape out a window, but Carl is killed when he is sliced in half by Camille. Barry manages to escape and stumbles across a human druggie, who becomes able to communicate with his groceries after he injects himself with bath salts. After sobering up and attempting to cook Barry, the druggie is decapitated in a domestic accident.

After Frank separates from his friends, who disapprove of his skepticism of the Great Beyond, he discovers a cookbook behind the freezer section and reveals its contents to the rest of Shopwell's groceries. Initially panicking, the groceries choose not to believe Frank out of fear of losing their sense of purpose, prompting Frank to lash out at them for their blind belief. Barry and other groceries from the druggie's home return to the store with the druggie's severed head, revealing that the humans can be killed. The groceries are able to drug the human shoppers and employees using toothpicks laced with bath salts. When the drugged humans begin attacking the groceries, Frank convinces everyone to listen to him and join the fight against the shoppers, and a store-wide battle ensues.

After absorbing the contents of liquor bottles, Douche becomes a wild monster and takes control of Darren, the store manager, by inserting himself into his anus and yanking on his scrotum to puppeteer his actions. Once they caught Frank, Douche gets revenge by biting on Frank's torso. Barry and the other foods launch a rocket at Douche and Darren made from propane tanks and a garbage bin used to dispose of expired foods. Brenda rescues Frank from Douche and Darren just as the rocket hits them, killing them both. With the battle over, the foods celebrate their victory in a massive orgy.

Afterwards, Frank, Brenda, Barry, Kareem, Sammy and Teresa meet with Firewater and Gum, a Stephen Hawking-esque wad of chewing gum, who have had a psychedelic experience and discovered that their world is not real, and they are merely cartoons voiced by famous actors in another dimension. Gum has constructed a portal to this dimension, and the groceries decide to travel there to meet their creators.

Voice cast

Rogen has an additional minor role in the film as Sgt. Pepper, a red pepper sergeant. Hader similarly has two additional roles as a bottle of Sigueme Tequila and a guacamole gangster named El Guaco. Both Rogen and Norton also appear as the uncredited live-action heads of themselves at the end of the film. Anders Holm voices Troy, one of the sausages who picks on Barry. Rogen's wife Lauren Miller voices Camille Toh, a woman who purchases Frank and Brenda's packages, and a tampon who absorbs Darren's spilled blood. Harland Williams voices Baba Ganoush, a drug dealer that the Druggie gets the bath salts from, and a bottle of ketchup that tries to comfort Honey Mustard upon his return. Directors Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan have various cameo appearances throughout the film: Vernon as an Ed Wynn-esque roll of toilet paper, an Adolf Hitler-esque sauerkraut, a catcalling sausage, a grape, a beer can, and a pop bottle; and Tiernan as an Irish potato and a can of noodle soup. Storyboard artist Scott Underwood plays Gum, a Stephen Hawking-esque wad of chewing gum; Twink, a homosexual Twinkie who is one of the Non-Perishables; and two groceries owned by the druggie: a bag of Krinkler's Potato chips and a half-eaten slice of pizza.

Production

Rogen has stated that he worked for eight years to get the film made; however, the content worried most film studios and they thus did not pick it up. Noting that the film came from "an innocent place", Rogen stated "'What would it be like if our food had feelings?' We very quickly realized that it would be f*cked up." Goldberg revealed the project to Indiewire in July 2010, stating it was a "top secret super project". Initially, Indiewire was skeptical that the project was real and not a hoax on Goldberg's part, but after vetting, it did confirm that it was in the works. In November 2010, Hill independently confirmed to MTV News that he was working on an R-rated 3D animated film.

The film was formally announced in September 2013 as a partnership between Sony Pictures Entertainment, Annapurna Pictures and Point Grey Pictures. On May 29, 2014, it was announced that the film would be released on June 3, 2016, but in early 2016, the release date was revised to August 12, 2016. In January 2014, Rogen, Hill, James Franco and Kristen Wiig were announced as the leads in the film. The other cast includes Edward Norton, Michael Cera, David Krumholtz and Nick Kroll. On April 9, 2014, Salma Hayek was set to lend her voice to the film as Teresa the Taco. It was also announced that Paul Rudd, Danny McBride and Anders Holm would voice characters in the film.

The film received an R rating for strong crude sexual content, pervasive language and drug use. When Rogen initially submitted the film to the MPAA, however, they assigned it with an NC-17 rating due to the visibility of pubic hair on Lavash's scrotum. In order to be assigned an R rating, the pubic hair was removed.

Soundtrack

The film’s score was composed by Alan Menken and Christopher Lennertz. The soundtrack was released on August 5, 2016 by Madison Gate Records and Sony Music Masterworks.

Track listing

All music composed by Alan Menken and Christopher Lennertz, except as noted.

Premiere and theatrical release

A rough cut of the film was shown at the South by Southwest Film Festival on March 14, 2016. The final cut of the film screened at Just for Laughs on July 30, 2016. The film was theatrically released in the United States and Canada on August 12, 2016. The film was released in the United Kingdom on September 2, 2016.

Home media

Sausage Party was released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on Blu-ray, DVD and digital download on November 8, 2016.

Video game

Frank and Brenda, two main characters from the film, make guest appearances in the mobile fighting game Sausage Legend, released by Milkcorp for iOS and Android, as part of a limited special event, running from March 6, 2017 through July 31, 2017. As this game involves dueling with sausages, players in this game can unlock and control Brenda, who swings Frank around to battle other sausages.

Box office

Sausage Party grossed $97.7 million in North America and $42.8 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $140.4 million, against a budget of $19 million. The film is the most commercially successful R-rated animated film of all time, replacing South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (which held the record for 17 years), and made a net profit of $47.06 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.

In the United States and Canada, Sausage Party was released on August 12, 2016, alongside Pete's Dragon and Florence Foster Jenkins, and was initially projected to gross $15–20 million from 2,805 theaters in its opening weekend. However, after grossing $3.3 million from Thursday night previews (more than the $1.7 million made by Rogen's Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising in May) and $13.5 million on its first day, weekend projections were increased to $30–35 million. The film ended up grossing $33.6 million in its opening weekend, finishing second at the box office, behind suicide Squad.

Outside North America, the biggest markets are the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, Germany, Russia and Israel, where the film grossed $10.2 million, $6.8 million, $4.1 million, $3.5 million $2.6 million and $2 million respectively.

Critical response

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 82% based on 192 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Sausage Party is definitely offensive, but backs up its enthusiastic profanity with an impressively high laugh-to-gag ratio – and a surprisingly thought-provoking storyline." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 66 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Vince Mancini of Uproxx wrote "Sausage Party's most charming quality is that it feels exactly like a group of 13-year-olds trying to entertain themselves, with excessive C-bombs and constant groan-worthy food puns." Richard Roeper gave the film three out of four stars, saying, "Despite all the cursing and envelope-pushing and bat-bleep crazy sexual stuff, Sausage Party isn't mean-spirited. It's just … stupid. But also pretty smart. And funny as hell." Lindsey Bahr of Associated Press gave the film a positive review and wrote: "There is no one out there making comedies quite like Rogen and Goldberg. They are putting their definitive stamp on the modern American comedy one decency-smashing double entendre at a time."

Work conditions

After release, controversy emerged after anonymous comments attributed to the animators on a Cartoon Brew article suggested that the animators at Nitrogen Studios worked under poor conditions and were forced by director Greg Tiernan to work overtime without pay. A total of 36 of the 83 animators were blacklisted and went uncredited in the film, believed to be due to their complaints; comments made in anonymous interviews by some of the animators involved in the project by Variety, The Washington Post, and The Hollywood Reporter alleged that the comments were accurate. All the animators in the film were reportedly told outright that they would be blacklisted if they did not work overtime without pay.

Rating in France

The film was granted a −12 certificate by France's classification commission. Jean-Frédéric Poisson, the President of the Christian Democratic Party, criticized the decision and said, "An orgy scene for 12-year-olds! Everything remains to be done to combat early exposure to pornography".

Sequel

Rogen has expressed interest in making a Sausage Party 2 and more animated films aimed for adults. When asked about a sequel, Rogen stated: "It's something we talk about, yeah. That's one of the reasons why we took away the [original] ending because we thought, well, if that was the first scene of the next movie it's probably not what you would want it to be, with them just seeing us and finding us basically. But the idea of a live-action/animated movie, like a Who Framed Roger Rabbit?-style hybrid, is also very exciting, mostly because Who Framed Roger Rabbit is one of my favorite movies of all time."