The Underachievers concept began shortly after D.B. Cheng completed his feature, "So Beauty". The script was written in six months and production was to begin in the summer of 2006. After extensive pre-production efforts, D.B. ultimately had to call off shooting "Underachievers". You can say D.B. underachieved in completing the film.

After completing "The Red Door", D.B. decided to get back to shooting "Underachievers". Perhaps it was a matter of timing or some luck, but "Underachievers" came together with the most talented cast and crew D.B. has ever worked with (see the CAST/CREW section for details).

D.B. was fortunate enough to have most of the crew from "The Red Door" return. Amanda Bruckner, Jen Hwang, and Sean Ripley were new editions to the team that fit right in.

The cast came together well. D.B. brought back actors James Lontayao and Alan Kaiser from "The Red Door" to be vital members of the "Underachievers" cast. To fill the rest of the cast, extensive auditions were held. D.B. was uncompromising when it came to getting the right people for the "Underachievers". Several additional rounds of auditions were held, which pushed production back, but was well worth it. Goldie Chan, Rachael Besant, Tom Lazur, James Chen, Mae Cruz, and Sal Serpe stood out during the extensive audition process.

The shooting schedule was, again, very ambitious. An 11 day shoot was planned with 1 day for voiceovers. It took a heroic effort from the cast and crew to execute a movie of this size. The number of extras and locations were nearly double the number of "The Red Door" boasting nearly 50 extras and 12 locations. On top of that character design of the comic book characters were done in parallel with principal photography. Mahamari Tsukitaka and Phillip Gedarovich were brought in to create the comic book sequences. Phillip Gedarovich also animated the sequences and truly captured the idea of a motion comic.

Overall, "Underachievers - The Champions of Mediocrity" was the most ambitious project D.B. Cheng has worked on. Although it took D.B. longer than he would have liked to get the project off the ground, things came together in a way that was unimaginable.