If you haven’t yet heard someone saying “skibidi toilet,” let us inform you about the YouTube series before the wonky combo of words expands out to TV and possibly film.
The controversial animated internet sensation with more than 17 billion views is being developed for TV and film treatment by director Michael Bay and former Paramount Pictures president Adam Goodman. On the latest episode of Variety’s Strictly Business podcast, they sat last week for an exclusive interview discussing their plans for Skibidi.
“We are absolutely in talks right now, both on the television side and the earliest conversations right now on the film side,” Goodman said. “But it’s not a be-all, end-all for us.”
On Feb. 7, 2023, a then 23-year-old Alexey Gerasimov uploaded an 11-second video to his YouTube channel DaFuq!?Boom! called “skibidi toilet,” which featured a head emerging from a toilet singing. The series continued with human-headed toilets engaging in a war with humanoids in a cinema style known as machinima.
A native of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Gerasimov is now working with Bay and Goodman’s independent studio named Invisible Narratives.
A ‘SKIBIDI TOILET’ movie and TV franchise is in the works from Michael Bay.
(Source: https://t.co/uPWgJPdayE) pic.twitter.com/ZgoGE0KeU5
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) July 24, 2024
Each video is explosive, violent, and free of any discernible dialogue. Those qualities have won it a worldwide audience, not to mention the distinction of being a cultural icon for Generation Alpha.
“I will say that Michael and Jeffrey Beecroft, who’s his longtime production designer and a colleague of his that’s worked with him on all of his movies, have been working very closely with Alexey to really professionalize the kind of back engine of this, to make sure, if we ever decide to go film or television, that this is kind of lifted beyond just the resources that creators have on the internet,” added Goodman.
Bay, a filmmaker best known for his action work including the Transformers film franchise, talked to the Washington Post about working with the newcomer.
“I’ve always been a director that believes in taking risks,” Bay told The Post. “Audiences yearn for fresh, new ideas. With ‘Skibidi,’ it’s a new world of what the younger generation is watching, and I’m taking it very seriously.”
It’s become so quickly ubiquitous among young people that “Skibidi” is now a slang filler word, and there is fanfiction, unofficial merchandise, and series-inspired games hosted on Roblox.
Goodman, whose resume includes the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, and the SpongeBob SquarePants series, told The Post, “I don’t think that there’s ever been anything that we’ve been involved with that mirrors the growth of [‘Skibidi Toilet’].”