How Jerry Seinfeld Spent $150 Million On One Throwaway Joke

By Robert Scucci
| Published 1 hour ago

If you have enough clout in Hollywood, like Jerry Seinfeld did after his eponymous series finished its run in the late 90s, just about any idea you have while you’re still hot will be bankrolled with a blank check made out to cash. 2007’s Bee Movie is a perfect example of what happens when somebody like Steven Spielberg chats with Jerry Seinfeld, who at the time was playfully frustrated over his wife’s new beekeeping hobby. The joke suggested that his wife was having an affair with the bees, and that he should make a movie about insects that pushes this concept to the extreme.

He said he’d call it Bee Movie, or something along those lines, because of the double entendre. You know, like a B-movie, but with actual bees. This was apparently all Spielberg needed to hear to chat with DreamWorks, the company he co-founded in 1994, so Jerry Seinfeld could secure roughly $150 million and make what might be the most misguided animated kids movie to ever grace the silver screen.

Why You Gotta Bee Like That?

Bee Movie attempts to tell a wholesome story about Barry B. Benson (Jerry Seinfeld), a young honey bee who’s about to graduate and enter the workforce. Barry is immediately disillusioned by the fact that whatever career path he picks at this point in his short life cycle will be the only job he ever has until he ultimately perishes, as bees are known to do. In a stroke of luck, paired with a dash of daring insubordination, Barry’s invited to tag along with the Pollen Jocks before officially declaring a proper job.

The Pollen Jocks keep everything back at the hive running like clockwork. They’re disproportionately jacked, gather pollen, and allow all the bees back at the hive to produce that sweet, sweet nectar known as honey.

After getting separated from the pack because he’s a grossly unqualified Pollen Jock wanna-bee, Barry has a run-in with a human woman named Vanessa (Renée Zellweger) and her boyfriend Ken (Patrick Warburton). The latter tries to kill Barry because he’s allergic to bees. Vanessa, on the other hand, values all life, scolding Ken for being so aggressive toward one of God’s beautiful creatures. Naturally, Barry becomes attracted to Vanessa, and the two form an interspecies romance, which leads Bee Movie directly into its true conflict.

Barry is horrified to find out that humans collect, jar, and sell honey made by bees for profit after a trip to the grocery store with Vanessa. According to Barry, the only reasonable thing to do at this point is sue humanity for exploiting bees, which conveniently allows Jerry Seinfeld to jam in as many celebrity cameos as humanly possible, including Ray Liotta and Sting.

Do Bees Brush Their Hair With Honeycombs?

On paper, Bee Movie has all the beats you’d expect from an animated kids movie made by DreamWorks Animation or Pixar. There’s one important distinction you need to consider, however. Jerry Seinfeld’s public persona is patently unlikable by design, which is something I’ll openly admit as a fan of Seinfeld, because that’s what makes Seinfeld such a satisfying watch. That energy transfers directly over to Bee Movie, making for a confusing watch despite his best efforts.

Jerry Seinfeld’s Barry B. Benson is witty and charming, and he points out the systemic flaws surrounding bee culture in the form of oppressive work conditions made even worse by their incredibly short life spans. Barry B. Benson also asks the Pollen Jocks what pollen is. Barry B. Benson romantically pursues a human woman while simultaneously undermining her live-in boyfriend’s relationship with her. Barry B. Benson, who has no legal experience and confirms earlier in the movie that he doesn’t know how to tell time, somehow represents every single bee in the world in a massive class action lawsuit against the entire human race.

Oh yeah, and Barry B. Benson, after realizing the error of his ways, casually suggests a suicide pact with Vanessa when his plan epically backfires and puts the entire world in jeopardy.

What’s All The Buzz About?

A tonally disjointed mess of a kids movie, Bee Movie has rightfully earned its cult status after the internet turned the entire thing into a meme in 2015. Its storylines and in-universe logic make absolutely no sense, which is a fundamental filmmaking problem because movies are supposed to tell coherent stories. The result is a surreal, half-baked, high-budget mess of one-liners, bee puns, and implied interspecies erotica that anybody could get bee-hind if they’re in the right mood for it.

Bee Movie is dripping with Seinfeldian humor, and that adds to its charm in small doses. Jerry Seinfeld has a grating personality, and much of his humor is based on complaining about trivial, relatable things. The problem is that bees aren’t relatable, and making an entire movie about Jerry Seinfeld working out his bee-based puns is something you truly have to see to bee-lieve. Of course the internet hivemind would chomp at the bit years after the film’s initial release, because it’s simply too weird not to celebrate for its inherent audacity alone.

As of this writing, Bee Movie is available for on-demand rentals and purchases through YouTube, Apple TV+, Prime Video, and Fandango at Home.