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The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water is a 2015 American adventure comedy film based on the television series SpongeBob SquarePants. Directed by series veteran Paul Tibbitt, the live-action animated film stars the show's regular voice cast alongside Antonio Banderas in a live-action role, and Matt Berry as a new character. In the film SpongeBob and Plankton form an uneasy alliance to find the Krabby Patty secret formula after it mysteriously disappears and leads to their town, Bikini Bottom, devolving to chaos. The trail eventually leads SpongeBob and friends to the surface, where they confront Burger Beard, a pirate with a magical book that makes any text written upon it come true. It is the second theatrical film based on the series.
The film was written by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, adapted from a story by Tibbitt and SpongeBob creator Stephen Hillenburg. As with the first film, the final act places the animated characters in a live-action world. These scenes were directed by Mike Mitchell and were filmed in Savannah and Tybee Island, Georgia. Filming began in September 2013, and was completed in November that year. The film is dedicated to Ernest Borgnine, the voice of Mermaid Man, who died in 2012. It also features the final film role of Tim Conway, the voice of Barnacle Boy, who died in 2019.
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water was released in the United States on February 6, 2015, by Paramount Pictures. It received positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success, earning $325 million against its $74 million budget and becoming the highest-grossing film in the series. A third film, Sponge on the Run, was released in 2020, and a fourth, Search for SquarePants, was released in 2025.
