Fourth Movie Announced: The Search for SquarePants

[Dr. Fauci]

The fourth mainline SpongeBob movie has been revealed to be called "The Search for SquarePants," currently scheduled to release May 23, 2025. Derek Drymon will be the director.

Plot: "SpongeBob travels to the depths of the ocean to face off against the ghost of the Flying Dutchman."

Source: https://www.indiewire.com/2023/04/spongebob-squarepants-4-transformers-one-animated-cast-1234833032/ 

[Old Man Jenkins]

Maybe they’ll liberate his corpse from that store window and finally put The Dutchman to rest. Or they could just forget all about that and give ‘em a whole new origin for spin-off purposes or somethin idk.

[Dr. Dennis Whitaker]

this honestly excites me a lot more than Sponge on the Run and even Sponge Out of Water which i love

[Dr. Fauci]

Film is currently scheduled to be released December 19th, 2025.

[Dr. Fauci]

 

[CartoonCF]

Seems decent enough. May see it.

[Dr. Fauci]

 

[Old Man Jenkins]

Saw it last night. Idk if I’m just becoming a miserable old unc because I like to think my threshold on what’s good and what’s bad is pretty damn generous/forgiving (probably one of the few people who genuinely likes Good Dinosaur here lol and I prob have the most positive things to say about Lilo and Stitch live action) but this movie just was not it for me. It felt like same old thing again, SpongeBob and Patrick going on a sea-trotting adventure, with added first movie retreading by switching out wanting to “be men” to being seen as a “big guy” (at least that plot element gives the Ice Spice song more relevance to the movie, I suppose). The humor didn’t land for me personally more often than not and SB humor is usually on point for me, even the third movie accomplished that more for me. The story itself I thought was perfectly fine despite taking a lot of liberties with the established lore and pretty much feeling almost as same-y as the first movie. The added element of the Dutchman and his crew as featured players throughout most of it did enough to make it feel not quite as same-y and it gave SpongeBob and Patrick more to bounce off of than just each other. I really liked the added emphasis on Mr. Krabs and his relationship with SpongeBob in this one. This felt very much like Krabs’ movie as well, similar to how the second movie placed a lot of the spotlight on Plankton. There was one particular gag involving Sandy that made me laugh. But then the movie has to do the thing these movies tend to do and go live-action, but the live-action segment in this movie felt absolutely the most egregious and momentum-stopping for me. I was starting to feel second-hand embarrassed the more it went on. Idk it just was not it for me, and made the ending feel like that much less of a big deal. To me, the movie just abruptly ends on a rather low note, to the point I asked myself “that was it?” I could feel the weight of the journey and its end result in the previous movies. I did not feel much of any weight with this.

glad to hear that a lot of other people seemed to like it online, and more power to them for that. Most of the people coming out of the showing before mine sure seemed entertained. Maybe I would’ve felt some of that too if my showing had more than just me and like five other people. Tho I don’t necessarily feel like watching it a second time to test that theory lol (but I’ll probably wind up doing that anyway). Was hoping to at least be entertained by this, especially after the goodness that was Titans of the Tide, but this unfortunately didn’t cut it for me.

EDIT: Went to a much more lively showing last night to see if that does anything. Didn’t really do much to enhance the movie for me, unfortunately. Nice to see others genuinely enjoying it tho.

Edited December 24, 2025 by Old Man Jenkins
I have since tested my theory

[1st Descendent of Smitty]

I just realized that in this new movie, they reuse old ideas. I was watching The Sponge on the Run last night and right before they go to The Lost City of Atlantic City, SpongeBob goes over things similar to courage. It appears to be a list quite similar to that on the Krusty Krab kids' menu (Swashbucklers Certificate) in The Search for SquarePants. It's like how they reused the line, "Open your eyes" from the first movie in R.I.P Glove World. Did anyone else catch this?

From the transcript of The SpongeBob Movie Sponge on the Run

Patrick: Tartar Sauce! What's the next best thing of courage?
SpongeBob: Resolve?
Patrick: No.
SpongeBob: Fortitude?
Patrick: Nah.
SpongeBob: Commitment?
Patrick: Nope.
SpongeBob: Wherewithal?
Patrick: Mm-mm.
SpongeBob: Bravery?
Patrick: No.
SpongeBob: Valor?
Patrick: What?
SpongeBob: Grit?
Patrick: No.
SpongeBob: Heroism?
Patrick: Uh-uh.
SpongeBob: Gallantry?
Patrick: Nah.
SpongeBob: Moxie?
Patrick: A buddy! A wingman!
SpongeBob: A wingman?
Patrick: A friend.