Springfield of dreams

May 11, 2007 [...] once the realization that their show might never get canceled hit producers of Fox's "The Simpsons," they finally moved forward with "The Simpsons Movie," employing a kind of secrecy befitting a CIA mission. [...] when the film premieres July 27 for a worldwide audience, it will be the culmination of a project that really began -- at least in the minds of its producers -- way back in the early 1990s. Series producers are famously obsessed with rewrites and laboring to make each frame as clever and perfect as is humanly possible; not surprisingly, the same tack is being taken with the film.

Subscribe to the Hollywood Reporter and see the entertainment industry from its best angle: the inside looking out. Complete access to real-time news and exclusive analysis that goes behind the scenes from film to television, home video to digital media.

   Subscribe now.