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Big Idea Productions, the studio behind VeggieTales, released its first feature film, Jonah, in 2002. But before founder and owner Phil Vischer could produce a second film, Big Idea declared bankruptcy and sold all its assets to Classic Media LLC.

Vischer with his most famous characters

Since then, Vischer has written Me, Myself and Bob (Thomas Nelson), his book about the faith lessons of Big Idea's collapse; started a new company called Jellyfish, a faith-based idea incubator for family entertainment; and works with Big Idea as a consultant and writer.

On Friday, Universal Studios will release Big Idea's The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie. Vischer wrote the script and voiced "two of the three pirates and half of the other characters." He talked with CT Movies about Pirates, the lessons of Jonah, and the current state of Christian film.

Can you watch Jonah now, knowing all that happened afterward?

Phil Vischer: No, it's pretty messed up. We laid off half the studio the morning after our premiere party. I don't know if you could soil a memory more than that. It was brutal.

When I watch it now, I can smell my ambition—the drive to do as much as I could with Big Idea as fast as I could. We were in financial trouble actually before we went into production. The movie became about me wanting God to put a stamp of approval on my ambition. And he didn't. He consciously declined my invitation. Sometimes the best way to grow is to lose and to fail—dramatically and publicly.

How did The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything come about?

Vischer: Pirates actually started out during the production of Jonah. I had written another film called The Bob and Larry Movie to be the follow-up to Jonah. But when our finances started to completely fall apart in the second half of 2002, we realized we needed to lay off about half our animation staff.

Jonah helped to sink Big Idea

We needed a project to put into production to keep from laying off the other half of the studio. We just didn't have the money to put The Bob and Larry Movie into production. It's an elaborate and ambitious undertaking that even has humans in it. So, I ended up with two months to come up with something simpler and easier to produce.

How did you decide on Pirates?

Vischer: We had so much fun in Jonah with those three characters—The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. I thought, Could we take these three characters and put together something driven by the dynamic of their personalities?

I ended up with about 25 days to write it so we could keep the rest of the animation studio together. I pulled it off, but that was right about the time we lost the lawsuit with Lyrick Studios. It was the lawsuit that finally killed Big Idea Productions. All the animators had to be let go.

What became of the Pirates script?

Vischer: Before bankruptcy, I thought, OK, well let's sell this out for bidding to a couple animation studios who might be able to do it for us. Much later, the new Big Idea owners got a call from an animation studio in Toronto saying they were interested.

However, as part of the deal for Jonah, Artisan had the first right to release a second VeggieTales movie. The Artisan contact for Jonah was interested but he left for Universal. Luckily he said, 'Let's do this at Universal!'"

When did you get re-involved?

Vischer: The new Big Idea owners invited me to come to L.A. to pitch the story to Universal because it was my story. It was bizarre because three years earlier, we couldn't get any of the majors to show any interest in Jonah. Of course, that was pre-Passion [Mel Gibson's blockbuster hit, The Passion of The Christ]. In fact when I got to Universal, there were 15 executives in the room to hear the pitch. One commented, "We didn't get this many people together to take the King Kong pitch!"

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