Ron's Gone Wrong is a 2021 animated science fiction comedy film directed by Sarah Smith and Jean-Philippe Vine, and written by Smith and Peter Baynham. The voice cast features Zach Galifianakis, Jack Dylan Grazer, Ed Helms, Justice Smith, Rob Delaney, Kylie Cantrall, Ricardo Hurtado, and Olivia Colman. The film follows Barney (Grazer), a socially awkward middle-schooler who, after the release of a popular line of robots, receives and befriends a defective robot he names Ron (Galifianakis).
Ron's Gone Wrong was the first feature film from Locksmith Animation and was animated by DNEG Animation, along with funding support from TSG Entertainment. Animation and voice acting for the film were all done remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The film had its world premiere at the 65th BFI London Film Festival on 9 October 2021, and was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 15 October, and in the United States on 22 October, by 20th Century Studios. It grossed $60.7 million and received generally positive reviews from critics.
Plot Tech giant Bubble unveils their latest creation: the Bubble Bot (or B-Bot for short), created by Bubble's CEO Marc Wydell with the intent to make a robot buddy that is designed to help make friends via algorithm. In the town of Nonsuch, California, 12-year-old Barney Pudowski, whose mother has died, is the only pupil in his class who does not have a B-Bot. His former childhood friends, Savannah Meades, Rich Belcher, Noah, and Ava have all become absorbed by their individual B-Bots. On Barney's birthday, his father, Graham, and his 77-year-old Bulgarian grandmother, Donka, come to realize that he does not have any friends. They hastily go to a Bubble store, but it closes for the day, leading them to take a slightly damaged one that fell from a delivery van.
Barney receives the B-Bot as his late-birthday gift, but upon activating it, he quickly learns that it is defective and glitchy. Not wanting to upset his father, Barney decides to take it back to the Bubble store to get it fixed, but ends up running into Rich and his friends, who taunt and try to humiliate Barney. The B-Bot begins to fight back as his safety functions have been disabled, with him and Barney happily running off. However, Rich calls the police and they, along with Graham and Donka, are taken to the Bubble store so that the B-Bot can be recycled. Not wanting to see him go, Barney secretly rescues him and names him Ron Bintscatsco, after his model number; R0NB1NT5CAT5CO.
When Barney and Ron's actions are reported, Marc is happy to see Ron go against his programming while his fellow executive Andrew Morris views it as bad publicity, believing Ron must be destroyed for the issue to be resolved. Barney teaches Ron how to be a good friend and, while hanging out, runs into Savannah, who shows Ron that his purpose is to help Barney get friends. Despite Barney telling Savannah not to, she posts Ron's actions online, alerting Bubble. The next day, Ron gets out of the house and tries to get "friends" for Barney, bringing a series of random people to school. After Barney gets in trouble, Rich discovers Ron's unlocked function and downloads it, causing all the other B-Bots to have their safety features turned off. The B-Bots run wild, prompting a patch update to be sent to them, but not before Savannah is publicly humiliated.
Barney is kicked out from school and tells Ron off, but upon returning home, realizes that Ron was just trying to be a friend exactly the way he was taught. He decides to run away with Ron when Bubble employees come for them. They briefly run into Savannah, still upset over her incident, and Barney tells her that he's going to hide in the woods. Meanwhile, while Andrew warns Marc about the ramifications of the B-Bot, Marc sneaks away so that he can meet Ron. Andrew sends all nearby B-Bots to track them down.
Barney and Ron spend the night in the woods, which at first they enjoy. However, the following day, a storm rolls in and Ron, whose battery has run out, powers down. They are soon pursued by the B-Bots, but they manage to escape and hide in a ditch, triggering an asthma attack for Barney. Andrew, deciding that Ron disappearing will be better for the company, decides to call off the B-Bots, effectively leaving Barney to die. Due to the cold weather, Barney becomes weak and Ron, using his last bit power, brings him back to civilization just outside the school where Savannah, Rich, Noah, and Ava rush out to help him. Ron shuts down for good.
Barney is taken to the hospital and recuperates before meeting Marc, who has patched Ron to make him like every other B-Bot. Barney demands that Marc access the cloud to get Ron's original personality, but Andrew has since taken over the company and locked Marc out. Through an elaborate plan in which Barney, Graham, Donka and Marc break into Bubble HQ, Barney manages to make it to the Bubble database, finds Ron's original data and uploads him back into his body, restoring him back to his original code. Seeing that Bubble has direct access to everyone's B-Bot and realizing that Savannah, Rich, Noah, and Ava are just as lonely as he was, Barney suggests upgrading all the B-Bots to have Ron's flaws. However, this means that Ron will be dispersed. Barney reluctantly says goodbye to Ron as his programming is spread to everyone, mixing Marc's friendship algorithm with Ron's code. Marc blackmails Andrew into giving his position of CEO back after secretly recording him admitting that the B-Bots spy on their owners for profit.
Three months later, everyone has a faulty B-Bot, but are happy with their weird and wild personalities. Barney (who is now allowed back in school) no longer has one, but has become much more sociable and has gotten close with his former friends (which includes deleting the humiliating video of Savannah). As they hang out at recess, a giant Bubble tower that overlooks Nonsuch produces Ron's face, implying that he is still alive.
Voice cast Zach Galifianakis as Ron, Barney's malfunctioning B-Bot. Jack Dylan Grazer as Barney Pudowski, a socially awkward, lonesome middle-schooler. Ed Helms as Graham Pudowski, Barney's father and Donka's son. Olivia Colman as Donka Pudowski, Barney's grandmother and Graham's mother, who was born in Bulgaria. Rob Delaney as Andrew Morris, an executive of Bubble corporation. Justice Smith as Marc Wydell, the creator of the B-bot and the CEO of Bubble. Kylie Cantrall as Savannah Meades, Barney's popular classmate. Ricardo Hurtado as Rich Belcher, Barney's classmate who bullies Barney. Cullen James McCarthy as Noah, Barney's classmate who loves video games. Ava Morse as Ava, Barney's classmate who loves science. Marcus Scribner as Alex, one of Rich's cronies. Thomas Barbusca as Jayden, one of Rich's cronies. Ruby Wax as Ms. Hartley, Barney's middle school principal. Sarah Miller as Bree, a Bubble store manager. Krupa Pattani as Sita, a colleague of Andrew Morris. Megan Maczko as Miss Thomas, Barney's middle school teacher. Audrey Hsieh as Harper, Savannah's close friend. Bentley Kalu as an unnamed African-American police officer. John Macmillan and Brent Montrego as Bubble Techs. David Menkin as: Shayne the Biker Mr. Cleaver, Barney's extremely strict middle school coach. Iara Nemirovsky as Ellie. Liam Payne as an unnamed B-bot that gets kicked by Andrew in a cameo appearance.
Production
Development and production After founding Locksmith Animation, Sarah Smith wanted to create a film that observed the impact of the internet on children's relationships and self-esteem, which she realised could be made into a film after watching Her (2013), commenting "we have to make that film for kids, to [help] them evaluate those experiences". Smith approached Peter Baynham with one paragraph of story where a robot learns through imitation, Smith said that Baynham asked "what if it was an idiot and it was annoying?" Despite creating a British animated film, a creative decision was made to set it in a United States suburb. Locksmith co-founder Julie Lockhart explained, "From a design perspective, the fact that all the big tech companies are in California made it feel that's where it should be. We're also making films for a global audience that may not specifically be about British culture."
Locksmith had a troubled history in securing a distributor for the project. In May 2016, the studio formed a production deal with Paramount Pictures in which they would distribute Locksmith's films under their Paramount Animation banner. However, the following year Paramount abandoned the deal when Paramount chairman and CEO Brad Grey was replaced by Jim Gianopulos. In September 2017, Locksmith formed a multi-year production deal with 20th Century Fox, which would distribute their films under the 20th Century Fox Animation label with Locksmith aiming to theatrically release a film every 12–18 months. Their deal was for 20th Century Fox to bolster Blue Sky Studios' output and replace the loss of distributing DreamWorks Animation films, which are now owned and distributed by Universal Pictures, following its acquisition by NBCUniversal in August 2016. The acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney in March 2019 led to concern that the distribution deal would be lost again. Smith said the resulting acquisition was "terrifying", and described the prospect of promoting the project to Disney executives as "carrying coals to Newcastle", but ultimately they were supportive of the project. After production began on the film, Locksmith moved to Warner Bros. Pictures for two animated feature films.
On 12 October 2017, it was announced that the project would be titled Ron's Gone Wrong, and will serve as the first animated feature film from Locksmith. Alessandro Carloni and Jean-Phillipe Vine were announced to serve as the film's co-directors with Octavio E. Rodriguez. The visual effects company DNEG Animation was on board as a digital production partner to provide the film's computer animation. Also, Baynham, who previously worked with Smith on Arthur Christmas (2011), and Elisabeth Murdoch were announced to executive produce the film with Smith.
In test screenings, Smith was surprised to find that Donka was a popular character with children. The scene where Donka dances on a table with Ron was a favorite scene for children, and Smith viewed this as "comedy there that they haven't seen before".
Casting Grazer first began recording lines for the role of Barney in 2017 when he was 13 and did not finalize his role until early 2021 by the time he was 18. Grazer said that it became difficult to maintain his 13-year-old prepubescent voice throughout the years of recording. He was originally introduced as a test voice for early animatics, but Smith kept him on after being astounded by the emotional range of his performance.
Galifianakis was instructed to perform much of his lines for the role of Ron in a deadpan voice, to convey that Ron is run by an algorithm and is not very emotional. He commented that this was challenging and unusual, because he had never had directors in the past ask for "less" emotion. Smith praised Helms' performance in the role of Graham for skillfully improvising lines and contributing additional "touches" to the film, saying "You give him the lines and he'll do six versions of his own and he's hilarious".
Animation