In 2002, Hillenburg and the show's staff stopped making episodes to work on the film after the show's third season.[6] The film's plot originally had SpongeBob rescue Patrick from a fisherman in Florida;[6] an obvious reference to the 2003 film, Finding Nemo (2003), this was later said by Tom Kenny (the voice of SpongeBob) to be a "joke" plot to keep fans busy. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie was long-planned;[4] Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures had approached series creator Stephen Hillenburg for a film based on the show, but he refused for more than a year.[5] Hillenburg was concerned, after watching The Iron Giant (1999) and Toy Story (1995) with his son, about the challenge of SpongeBob and Patrick doing something more cinematically-consequential and inspiring without losing what he called the SpongeBob "cadence".[5] While on a break from season four post-production, "To do a 75-minute movie about SpongeBob wanting to make some jellyfish jelly would be a mistake, I think this had to be SpongeBob in a great adventure. That's where the comedy's coming from, having these two naïve characters, SpongeBob and Patrick, a doofus and an idiot, on this incredibly dangerous heroic odyssey with all the odds against them."
