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Variety reports Michael Bay has teamed with former Paramount Pictures president, Adam Goodman, to develop the wildly popular Skibidi Toilet into a potential film or television series. In conversation with the outlet, Goodman stated the pair envision their adaptation as a “hybrid animated/live action” film in the vein of the John Wick or District 9 movies, with the hopes of creating a new cinematic universe that bridges the gap between traditional media and online-native content.
In his own words, Goodman states, “I will say that Michael [Bay] and Jeffrey Beecroft, who’s his longtime production designer and a colleague of his that’s worked with him on all of his movies, have been working very closely with [Skibidi Toilet creator] Alexey [Gerasimov] to really professionalize the kind of back engine of this, to make sure, if we ever decide to go film or television, that this is kind of lifted beyond just the resources that creators have on the internet.”
For those unfamiliar, Skibidi Toilet is a series of animated online shorts planting the viewer directly into an armed conflict between a race of human heads emerging from toilet bowls and their camera-mounted cyborg foes. Since its launch in February 2023, the series has garnered a staggering 16.3 billion views–and its numbers are only climbing. If this sounds unfathomably bizarre to you, you’re not alone.
Stylistically, Skibidi Toilet marries the appeal of watching someone play a video game with the found footage genre, or perhaps with witnessing war correspondents in peril. The shorts are also mostly silent, with very little discernible dialogue, leaving much of the universe to be merely implied. Though it may seem counterintuitive, leaving the audience to suss out an alien universe on their own can lead to a very engaging viewing experience. As the series’ dedicated Wikipedia can attest, each individual viewer brings a lot to the experience, themselves–establishing a massive fanbase that is already eager to add to, and play with, the Skibidi universe, through online games or home-made merchandise (an official Skibidi toy line is coming this Fall).
It’s for this reason Michael Bay is going to have a hell of a row to hoe if he truly plans on adapting it to the feature format–at least in any way resembling a mainstream cinematic narrative. However, given the series’ popularity among Gen Alpha, the future of cinema may look a lot like Skibidi Toilet. Recent films like Skinamarink, Mad God or In a Violent Nature have dabbled with the concept of presenting a feature-length “vibe” that leaves the whys and wherefores of the narrative purposefully undiscussed, and led to great financial success against their meager budgets. Those films were quiet and reflective, though. Skibidi Toilet: The Motion Picture will have to be loud, angry and unfathomably expensive to present an experience that’s somehow “deluxe” to its inspiration, which anyone can watch on Youtube, for free, at any given moment.
That said, Michael Bay is largely known for his love of explosions and toilet humor, so perhaps he’s the right man at the right time to bring Skibidi Toilet to a theater near you. If any are still in business, by then.
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