The Simpsons have come a long way since first appearing as a rough cartoon segment of The Tracey Ullman Show, and some would say have perhaps overstayed their welcome, but there are plenty of fans of the series still out there and for that reason, as well as continued season renewals there is frequently talk about when we will see Springfield's first family back on the big screen. Their first outing in cinemas did what it needed to, but fell a long way short of pleasing many long term fans, so would it perhaps be better left alone considering it has been 14 years since The Simpsons Movie arrived in theaters? Well, according to long-term showrunner Al Jean talks are definitely still ongoing to bring the family back for a feature length sequel.

"We're cursed by high ratings. We're still on the air as a TV show and that takes up a lot of time," Jean confirmed in an interview with NME. "I worked on the [first] movie simultaneous to the show, and it nearly killed the animators. But we have an idea, it's just that we're waiting to see what the environment is. Do we want to do it as a streamer? In theaters? Animation has been the slowest to come back to theaters. But now that [ages] five and up are getting vaccinated [in America], the business might resume. We're in a wait-and-see mode. But there's definitely the germ of something there."

According to Jean, discussions about the potential sequel were just starting to pick up when the Covid pandemic hit and put many projects on the backburner. Development of The Simpsons Movie was not exactly a speedy process, with the original idea of a film being talked about in 2001 and the final movie not arriving until 2007, when it pulled in $536 million making the mixed critic and audience reviews mostly irrelevant. Unlike many series to movie shows, The Simpsons still had a huge core audience tuning into new episodes each week both before and after the movie arrived in cinemas, which helped the box office returns in the long run.

In July, Jean spoke with ComicBook.com about the plans for The Simpsons Movie 2, but at the time was more inclined to aim solely for a theatrical release. Whether something has changed to make streaming a real possibility for the sequel is unclear, but it certainly appears to be an option by the writer's new comments.

"We were really talking about it a lot before the pandemic. And now I think just as a caution, I want to see how movies and, specifically, animated movies come back, because I wouldn't want to do it just as a streaming experience," Jean said previously. "We really want it to be a theatrical movie because that was the point of the first one, it was a thing you couldn't get anywhere else. I'm going to movies, I'm vaccinated. I'm really rooting for the movie industry, but I want to see what, personally, the landscape is. And then they also have so many great movies, I think they have five {Avatar} movies, five Star Wars movies in waiting ... so they have a lot to roll out and we're going to go see Black Widow this weekend. I'm going to support the theater, even though I have Disney+."

With many big movies making their debuts on streaming platforms, and The Simpsons now being under the Disney banner, a Disney+ exclusive will certainly be something that will be considered when the time comes. This news originated at NME.