SpongeBob SquarePants: How Keanu Reeves Appeared in Sponge on the Run

Keanu Reeves is in SpongeBob SquarePants: Sponge on the Run, but it was a long road to get there. Everyone’s favorite actor doesn’t just do every movie, things have to appeal to him. Director Tim Hill and Patrick Star actor Bill Fagerbakke discussed how they managed to seal the deal in an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment. It turns out that the filmmaker was pretty adamant about having the Matrix star play a character named Sage. (He’s sort of a spirit guide for SpongeBob and Patrick throughout the movie.) Well, that chatter and a lot of determination set things into motion. One of the producers on the film actually had a personal connection to Reeves, so he put the good word in. From there the Bill & Ted star signed off on the part and the entire creative team was thrilled about the news. The entire situation is especially wild if you point out that Hill didn’t have a backup plan.

“[Tim] was like, ‘This will be Keanu Reeves,’” Fagerbakke explained. “We were like, ‘Yeah right.’ You’re always waiting for very much not Keanu Reeves.”

“Never have a back-up plan — that’s my motto,” the director added. “We would have found some way to do it. But [the role] was so him that we would have had to totally rewrite it!”

“We wanted a spirit guide character who was a little bit of a sensei and it just kept coming up Keanu in my head,” Hill recalled. “One of our producers knew him and reached out. When he saw some of the stuff we were contemplating for his role, he was like ‘Yup, I’ll do it!’ We lucked out, honestly.”

Check out the official synopsis for The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run:

“In the first-ever all CGI SpongeBob motion picture event, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, SpongeBob SquarePants, his best friend Patrick, and the Bikini Bottom gang star in their most epic adventure movie yet! When SpongeBob’s beloved pet snail Gary goes missing, a path of clues leads SpongeBob and Patrick to the powerful King Poseidon, who has Gary held captive in the Lost City of Atlantic City. On their mission to save Gary, SpongeBob and his pals team up for a heroic and hilarious journey where they discover nothing is stronger than the power of friendship.”

Are you excited for more SpongeBob with the launch of Paramount+? Let us know down in the comments!