The Powerpuff Girls Movie (2002) arrived courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Cartoon Network Studios, expanding Craig McCracken's hit animated series into feature length. It served as an origin story, tracing how Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup came to be and became Townsville's protectors. The film's marketing push included theatrical trailers distributed to exhibitors on 35mm, a format still standard for promotional reels at the time. For collectors, these trailer frames represent a tangible piece of early 2000s animated feature history, when Cartoon Network's properties were making a concerted push into cinemas.
This cell captures the three leads together in flight, the signature pose most associated with the franchise's identity. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup flying as a trio is the image most reproduced across merchandise, posters, and opening sequences, making this a foundational visual for the property. As a trailer cell rather than a frame from the finished feature, it belonged to the promotional reel meant to draw audiences into theaters, offering an early glimpse of the girls in their element. Collectors of Powerpuff material prize moments showing all three characters united, since it reflects the team dynamic central to the show's appeal.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm release-print trailer strip of The Powerpuff Girls Movie (2002).
Gauge
35mm: four perforations per frame along both edges, and the strip holds three complete frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced, with clean rounded-rectangle punches and no torn or missing holes seen.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track of several parallel bands runs beside the picture, with Dolby Digital data blocks in the gaps between the lower-edge perforations.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Clear base reads as a pale blue tint at the edges; the dye image looks neutral to warm with no obvious fading.
Projection history
No lines, scratches, cue marks or splices seen at this size; the frames look clean.
Picture
Positive image; the three frames run consecutively as one shot, and the cartoon characters are consistent with The Powerpuff Girls trailer on record.
Era check
An optical track plus Dolby Digital blocks on positive 35mm stock is consistent with a 2002 release print, when digital-and-analogue combination soundtracks were standard.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000071091
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
