SpongeBob's Fourth Film Heads to Paramount+ After $165 Million Theatrical Run

When Paramount+ subscribers open the app on Tuesday morning, they will find a familiar yellow sponge waiting for them. "The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants," the fourth theatrical film in the quarter-century-old franchise created by the late Stephen Hillenburg, arrives on the streaming platform on February 17 — roughly two months after it first landed in cinemas on December 19, 2025 .

The move marks another data point in the ongoing recalibration of theatrical-to-streaming windows across Hollywood. Where studios once guarded 90-day exclusivity periods as sacrosanct, Paramount's decision to bring the film to its own streamer in under 60 days signals a corporate calculation: the film's theatrical audience has largely been captured, and its streaming value as a subscriber magnet now outweighs whatever incremental ticket revenue remains .

For now, the streaming launch covers only the United States and Canada, with additional international Paramount+ markets to be announced at a later date . That geographic limitation is itself telling — it suggests Paramount believes the film still has theatrical legs in certain overseas territories, even as domestic audiences have moved on.

Directed by series veteran Derek Drymon, "Search for SquarePants" follows SpongeBob on a quest to prove his bravery to Mr. Krabs by following the Flying Dutchman, a mysterious swashbuckling ghost pirate voiced by Mark Hamill. The voice cast includes franchise regulars Tom Kenny, Clancy Brown, Rodger Bumpass, and Bill Fagerbakke, alongside newcomers George Lopez, Ice Spice, Regina Hall, Arturo Castro, and Sherry Cola .

The film's journey to the screen was itself a minor odyssey. Originally conceived as a direct-to-streaming feature centered on Mr. Krabs, the project was retooled into a full theatrical release with SpongeBob restored as the protagonist. By April 2023, Drymon — who had been with the show since its earliest days as a storyboard director and creative director — was brought on to helm the picture. Mark Hamill replaced Brian Doyle-Murray as the voice of the Flying Dutchman, adding star wattage to a cast already anchored by its legacy performers .

The film marks the fourth theatrical outing for the iconic Nickelodeon character, continuing a legacy that has spanned more than two decades across television and film . Critics gave it a broadly favorable reception, though some reviewers considered it the weakest entry in the franchise. The audience response, however, was warmer, with the film building steady legs through the holiday corridor after its December opening weekend.

Financially, the picture performed solidly if unspectacularly by franchise standards. It comfortably exceeded its production budget during its theatrical run, though it fell short of the heights reached by the original 2004 film or 2015's "Sponge Out of Water." The franchise's last outing, 2020's "Sponge on the Run," was derailed by pandemic-era distribution chaos and ended up going directly to streaming in most markets, making meaningful box-office comparisons across the series difficult.

The streaming debut raises questions that extend well beyond Bikini Bottom. Paramount, now under the ownership umbrella of Skydance Media following the contentious 2024 merger with Paramount Global, has been aggressively funneling content to Paramount+ as it battles for subscriber share against Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon's Prime Video. SpongeBob remains one of the company's most bankable intellectual properties — the franchise has generated billions in merchandise revenue since its 1999 debut — and placing the latest film on the streamer serves both as a retention tool for existing subscribers and as bait for families weighing which platforms to maintain during a period of subscription fatigue .

Skeptics might reasonably ask whether a 60-day window undermines the theatrical business model that the studio purports to support. If audiences know a Paramount film will be streaming within two months, the incentive to buy a movie ticket — particularly for a family outing where costs add up quickly — diminishes considerably. Studios have long argued that streaming and theatrical are complementary rather than cannibalistic, but the shrinking windows tell a different story. Disney, for comparison, held "Inside Out 2" from Disney+ for roughly 100 days after its June 2024 theatrical debut, reflecting a more conservative approach to windowing for its biggest animated titles.

Industry analysts and exhibitor groups have pushed back against shortened windows for years, arguing that the theatrical experience drives cultural events that streaming cannot replicate. The National Association of Theatre Owners has repeatedly warned that collapsing windows depress both box-office grosses and long-term franchise value. Paramount, for its part, appears to have weighed those arguments and concluded that its streaming platform's subscriber needs take priority — at least for a title whose theatrical run had largely played out.

The SpongeBob franchise also occupies an unusual cultural position. Created by marine science educator Hillenburg, who died in 2018 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at age 57, the show has transcended its origins as a children's cartoon to become a fixture of internet culture. SpongeBob memes are a lingua franca among millennials and Gen Z, and the character's image circulates as widely on social media as on Nickelodeon's airwaves. That cultural persistence may explain why Paramount continues to invest in theatrical films even as the show's television ratings have declined from their early-2000s peak — the brand's value extends far beyond any single film's performance.

For Paramount+, the timing is strategic. February is traditionally a quiet month for streaming launches, and a recognizable family title gives the platform a tentpole during a period when attention might otherwise drift to competitors' awards-season fare. Whether that translates into meaningful subscriber movement remains to be seen. The streaming wars have entered a phase where profitability matters more than raw subscriber counts, and SpongeBob's utility to Paramount's bottom line will ultimately be measured not in opening-weekend numbers but in churn reduction and engagement metrics that never appear in press releases.

The film will be available to Paramount+ subscribers in the U.S. and Canada starting Tuesday, February 17. International streaming dates have not yet been announced .