Mark Hamill, aka Luke Skywalker, aka The Joker, Fire Lord Ozai, and a hundred other roles, can now also be known officially as The Flying Dutchman. Today at San Diego Comic Con, Hamill made a surprise appearance at a SpongeBob SquarePants panel to announce he would be voicing The Flying Dutchman in upcoming movie The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants.
Mark Hamill revealed as voicing the villain the Flying Dutchman in next year’s fourth SpongeBob SquarePants movie. #SDCC pic.twitter.com/S9rC4TEKRA
— Eric Goldman (@TheEricGoldman) July 25, 2024
During the panel, Hamill appeared onstage alongside panel moderator Kel Mitchell (in full Good Burger get-up), Tom Kenny (SpongeBob), Bill Fagerbakke (Patrick), Carolyn Lawrence (Sandy), Rodger Bumpass (Squidward), Clancy Brown (Mr. Krabs), Mr. Lawrence (Plankton), Marc Ceccarelli, and Vincent Waller (executive producers). Upon his appearance, he announced he would be playing "one of the most popular villains in the history of SpongeBob" "the most fearsome goofball pirate you've ever seen."
Hamill then joked that this movie would be "more cerebral, more thoughtful" before breaking and saying it would be "inspired silliness, start-to-finish."
Hamill has made a minor appearance in SpongeBob before as one of Mermaid Man's arch-nemeses, The Moth, in an episode called Night Light. The character appears a few more times throughout the series, but Night Light is Hamill's only appearance.
With Hamill playing The Flying Dutchman, it's unclear what happened to long-standing Dutchman voice actor Brian Doyle-Murray. IGN has reached out to Nickelodeon for comment to learn if this is a permanent change. Update 4:20pm PT: Following the news today, "Brian Doyle-Murray" began trending on Twitter, with fans asking why Murray was not reprising his role and expressing concern that the swap to Hamill was done out of a desire to simply cast a celebrity.
Original story continues below:
During the panel, the SpongeBob cast did a live reading of pilot episode "Help Wanted" including an audience singalong to Tiny Tim's "Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight" that plays in the episode.
Toward the end of the panel in a Q&A, an audience member told Hamill that for him and his wife, "SpongeBob was our Star Wars." Hamill replied, "And Star Wars was my SpongeBob!"
The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants will be out on December 19, 2025. You can catch up on everything announced at SDCC 2024 right here.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
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