| Pixels | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Chris Columbus |
| Screenplay by |
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| Story by | Tim Herlihy |
| Based on | Pixels by Patrick Jean |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Amir Mokri |
| Edited by | Hughes Winborne |
| Music by | Henry Jackman |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Releasing |
Release date |
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Running time | 105 minutes[1] |
| Countries |
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| Language | English |
| Budget | |
| Box office | $244.9 million[4] |
Pixels (marketed asPixels: The Movie) is a 2015science fictionaction comedy film directed byChris Columbus from a screenplay byTim Herlihy and Tim Dowling, based on a story by Herlihy. Loosely adapted from the 2010 short filmPixels by Patrick Jean (who serves as an executive producer on the film), the film starsAdam Sandler,Kevin James,Michelle Monaghan,Peter Dinklage,Josh Gad andBrian Cox. In the film, analien force misinterpretsvideo feeds ofclassic arcade games as a declaration of war, resulting in them attacking Earth with technological recreations of icons from the games. ThePresident of the United States promptly assembles a team of formerarcade champions to lead the planet's defense.
Development on the film began in 2010, when Sandler obtained the rights to Jean's short film via hisHappy Madison Productions company and began developing the script with Herlihy. In 2013, Columbus entered talks to direct the film, drawn to the nostalgichomage to1980s arcade games likePac-Man,Donkey Kong andSpace Invaders, all of which were licensed for use in the film. Filming took place inToronto for three months, which involved extensive night shoots and practical sets. Post-production, led byDigital Domain andSony Pictures Imageworks, focused on creating voxelized 3D versions of arcade characters to integrate into the live-action scenes.
Pixels was released theatrically in the United States on July 24, 2015, bySony Pictures Releasing. The film grossed $244.9 million worldwide and received negative reviews from critics. It received five nominations at the36th Golden Raspberry Awards, includingWorst Picture.
In 1982, 13-year-old Sam Brenner and his friends Will Cooper and Ludlow "The Wonder Kid" Lamonsoff play at anamusement arcade together before Brenner participates in a video gamechampionship, where he seemingly loses aDonkey Kong match to the obnoxious Eddie "The Fireblaster" Plant.Videocassette footage of the event is put in atime capsule that gets launched intoouter space.
In the present, Brenner is anelectronics installer who is summoned alongsidelieutenant colonel Violet van Patten to theWhite House where Will, nowPresident of the United States, shows him surveillance footage of a besiegement at theAndersen Air Force Base. Sam discovers the attack's resemblance to the gameGalaga, butAdmiral James Porter of theU.S. Navy strongly advocates against its inferrence in the case.
Brenner meets up with Ludlow, who ascertained that the attack was caused by an alien force that mistook the time capsule's footage as a declaration of war. So, they are challenging Earth to a best-of-five battle using technological recreations of the championship's games, claiming Earth has lost the first match. Brenner and Ludlow tell Will of a coordinated aim atIndia, but he dismisses their concerns.
The aliens attack theTaj Mahal asArkanoid, winning the second match. Brenner and Ludlow trainNavy SEALs to play the games while Violet develops effectiverayguns. The team, calling themselves the "Arcaders", heads toLondon, where the aliens attackHyde Park asCentipede before being repelled by Brenner and Ludlow.
Will, Ludlow and a reluctant Brenner recruit a convicted Eddie to assist inNew York City, where the Arcaders battle a giantPac-Man inMini Coopers representingthe ghosts.Tōru Iwatani has his hand bitten off when he tries to console his creation just before the team overcome the task, receivingQ*bert as atrophy.
During a celebration at theWhite House however, the aliens announce that one of the Arcaders has cheated, meaning Earth forfeits the challenge. Violet's son Matty discovers Eddie cheated in the fight against Pac-Man using acode written on his glasses. He confirms these are the same ones he used in the video game championship, before the former is then abducted by the aliens.
The aliens attackWashington, D.C. with an army of video game characters. Alongside Will and a repentant Eddie, the Arcaders fight through the onslaught with leftover weaponry while Ludlow confronts Lady Lisa, a video game character whom he has a crush on, but he persuades her to join him. Brenner, Violet and Will are summoned to the alien'smother ship for a final chance to save Earth by facing their leader asDonkey Kong.
The trio is placed on the game's starting level, with Donkey Kong and the captives at the top level. Struggling againstthe obstacles, Brenner loses hope until Matty reveals Eddie's cheating. Realizing he is actually the world's bestDonkey Kong player, Brenner regains his spirit and defeats Donkey Kong, resulting in the aliens' forces, including Lisa, being neutralized.
The Arcaders are hailed as heroes as Will negotiates a peaceful agreement with the aliens. Eddie apologizes to Sam for his cheating and acknowledges him as the bestDonkey Kong player. Seeing Ludlow devastated over Lisa's termination, Q*Bert cheers him up by sacrificing his existence toshapeshift into her. Brenner and Violet begin a relationship, Eddie meetsSerena Williams andMartha Stewart as he requested and the aliens restore everything on Earth before their departure, including Iwatani's hand.
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Denis Akiyama portraysTōru Iwatani, the creator of thePac-Man franchise whose hand gets bitten off by his own creation while attempting to console him,[8] while the real Iwatani has a cameo appearance as arepairman at the amusement arcade that the Arcaders used to play at.Fiona Shaw portrays thePrime Minister of the United Kingdom,[9]Dan Aykroyd portrays themaster of ceremonies of the video game championship in the film's prologue[10] andMatt Frewer returns as hisMax Headroom character.[11][12] Additional character voices are provided byBilly West and Holly Beavon; West provided the vocal effects ofDojo Quest's primary enemies that attack aschool bus during the film's climax[13] and Beavon provided the dubbed voice ofMadonna in the aliens' first message.[14]
In 2010, it was announced thatAdam Sandler has bought thefilm rights to French filmmaker Patrick Jean's video game-themed short film,Pixels, via hisHappy Madison Productions company, and hiredTim Herlihy to write the script,[15][16][17] a draft Herlihy had said everybody at the studio "hated". Eventually, Herlihy and Sandler came up with the concept of havingKevin James star in the film as the President of the United States and incorporated this element in the script.[18] In July 2012, Tim Dowling was hired to rewrite the script, withSeth Gordon being attached as an executive producer with Gordon being a possible candidate to direct the film.[19]
Chris Columbus entered talks to direct the film in May 2013.[20] Columbus explained that he first met Sandler to discuss a possible remake of the South Korean filmHello Ghost, and as Columbus left the meeting, Sandler handed him the script forPixels. The script deeply affected Columbus, who considered it "one of the most original ideas I had seen since theAmblin days" and a good opportunity to harken back to the 1980s comedy films he worked on.[21] Characters from classicarcade games such asSpace Invaders,Pac-Man,Frogger,Galaga andDonkey Kong, among several others, werelicensed for use in the film from video game companies likeAtari,Taito,Konami,Bandai Namco Games andNintendo.Q*bert was coincidentally already owned by Sony Pictures, asColumbia Pictures ownedGottlieb while they developed the original game.[22]
There were originally plans to include a scene in which theGreat Wall of China is attacked, but the concept was removed from the script in hopes of improving the film's chances in the Chinese market.[23] Nintendo allowed the filmmakers to featureMario in the film, with hisDonkey Kong incarnation appearing as acameo, though hisSuper Mario Bros. incarnation was to appear in apost-credits scene where an alien resembling him is revealed to have survived at theWashington Monument. Noting the filmmakers could not make the scene work, Columbus decided against producing the scene, resulting in it being excised from the final film.[24]
On February 26, 2014, it was announced that Sandler would play the lead role in the film, while James andJosh Gad were in early talks to join the cast.[25] On March 28,Peter Dinklage was in final talks to join the film, playing the fourth and final male lead.[26]Jennifer Aniston was originally considered for the female lead, but declined due to scheduling conflicts.[27] On April 4,Michelle Monaghan joined the film to star as the female lead instead.[28] On June 11,Brian Cox joined the cast and plays military heavyweight Admiral Porter.[29] The part of "Lady Lisa", the glamorous protagonist of the fictional arcade gameDojo Quest, was offered toElisha Cuthbert, but she turned down the role,[30] which went toAshley Benson.[31] On July 9,Jane Krakowski joined the cast as the First Lady of the United States.[32]
The film wasgreenlit on a production budget of $135 million, whichDoug Belgrad negotiated down to $110 million.[33] On March 25, 2014, the Ontario Media Development Corporation confirmed the film would be shot inToronto from May 28 to September 9 atPinewood Toronto Studios.[34][35]
Principal photography on the film commenced in Toronto on June 2, 2014, using downtown streets decorated to resemble New York City.[36] Given sequences such as thePac-Man chase happened at night, and the filmmakers would often close the streets off from traffic at 7:00 PM and redecorate them to resemble New York until it was dark enough, filming overnight.[37] On July 29, filming was done outsideMarkham, Ontario.[38] Filming was also done in theRouge Park area, and extras were dressing in costume at Markham's Rouge Valley Mennonite Church.[38] On August 4, Gad, Dinklage and Benson were spotted in Toronto filming scenes for the film onBay Street, which was transformed into a city block in Washington, D.C., and littered with wrecked vehicles and giant holes in the pavement.[39] TheOntario Government Buildings was doubled to transform into a federal office building in Washington. Actors were aiming at aliens, which were added later withcomputer-generated imagery.[39] On August 26, filming took place inCobourg.[40] Filming was completed in three months, with twelve hours of shooting each day.[41]
Most of the visual effects were handled byDigital Domain andSony Pictures Imageworks with nine other VFX companies playing supporting roles, all under the leadership of supervisor Matthew Butler and producer Denise Davis. Early tests began in October 2013, with most effects work starting after principal photography wrapped in September 2014 and finishing by June 2015. Video game characters would be built out of cubic voxels to resemble the low resolutionpixel-based graphics from their original games, while also emitting light and havingraster scan defects in its animation to make it appear as if they came from aCRT monitor. Along with the actualsprite sheets, a major inspiration to integrate the film's conceptualized character designs into the third dimension was the cabinet art, which Imageworks visual effects supervisor Daniel Kramer considered "was the intention the game creators wanted their technology to be, but the technology couldn't live up to creating that". The most complex character to model was Q*bert, who interacted the most with humans and whose head needed to appear circular despite being made out of voxels.[37][42][43] A pivotal moment in the film is the Pac-Man sequence, where a giant Pac-Man pursues the protagonists through New York City in Mini Coopers that represent the ghosts from the origin series. The stereo team developed three-dimensional models of the main characters' faces using cyber scans of the actors.[44]
The animation team developed voxelized and three-dimensional versions of classic arcade characters, including Donkey Kong,Centipede and Pac-Man, to integrate them into live-action settings. The voxelization process involved using boxes that changed per frame to mimic the pixel-based graphics,[45] and was particularly challenging for characters with complex movements, such as Donkey Kong. Pac-Man's animation required the voxelization to allow light emission, using an extra Mini Cooper rigged with yellow light panels and generators that was driven in Toronto.[46] Physical props, such as barrels,[45] were constructed for key sequences to provide actors with reference points for interaction. In theDonkey Kong set, reflections on the stage and green screen required more digital replacements than anticipated.[45]
Thefilm score was composed byHenry Jackman, who had previously scoredDisney'sWreck-It Ralph, conducted byNick Glennie-Smith and performed by theHollywood Studio Symphony.[47] In June 2015,Waka Flocka Flame released a single entitled "Game On", featuringGood Charlotte, which serves as part of the film's soundtrack.[48] Prominent contributions to the soundtrack includeCheap Trick's "Surrender" and a rendition ofQueen's "We Will Rock You" remixed by Helmut VonLichten, the latter of which is featured during theDonkey Kong scenes. Additionally, a rendition ofTears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is performed by Ludlow near the end of the film.[49]Varèse Sarabande released the score soundtrack on July 24, 2015, the same day as the film's release.[50]
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The film's first trailer was released on March 19, 2015, and received 34.3 million global views in 24 hours, breaking Sony's previous record held byThe Amazing Spider-Man 2 (22 million views in 2014).[51] The second trailer was released on June 13, 2015.[52] Upon the trailer's release, similarities were noted between the film and a segment of theFuturama episode "Anthology of Interest II".[53][54]
Sony created a real-life "Electric Dreams Factory Arcade" with many of the arcade games featured in the film for variousfan conventions, such as the 2014San Diego Comic-Con and the 2015Wizard World Philadelphia.[55][56] In Brazil, a promotional video was released on July 2, 2015, showing Adam Sandler interacting withMonica andJimmy Five from local comicMonica's Gang.[57]
Pixels was originally scheduled to be released on May 15, 2015,[58][59] but on August 12, 2014, the release date was pushed to July 24, 2015.[60] In the United States and Canada, it was released in theDolby Vision format inDolby Cinema, marking the first film from Sony to be released in that format.[61]
Columbia Pictures hired Entura International to sendDigital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices to websites hosting user-uploaded videos of the film.[62] The company filed DMCA takedown notices indiscriminately against severalVimeo videos containing the word "Pixels" in the title, including the2010 short film the film is based on,[63] the film's official trailer, a 2006 independently produced Cypriot film uploaded by the Independent Museum of Contemporary Art, a 2010 university work by a student of theBucharest National University of Arts, a royalty-free stock footage clip and an independently produced project. The takedown notice sent by Entura stated that the works infringe a copyright they had the right to enforce; once the notice was made public, it was withdrawn.[64]
Pixels was released onBlu-ray (3D and 2D) andDVD on October 27, 2015, bySony Pictures Home Entertainment.[65] This release sold $12.4 million in DVD sales and $7.4 million in Blu-ray sales.[66]
Pixels grossed $78.7 million in North America and $164.9 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $244.9 million.[4] Reports of the production budget of the film range from $88 million to $129 million,[4] with Sony officially confirming the cost to be $110 million. The film received tax rebates of $19 million for filming in Canada.[67]
In the United States and Canada,Pixels opened alongsidePaper Towns,Southpaw andThe Vatican Tapes,[68][69] and faced competition from holdoversMinions andAnt-Man, both of which were projected to earn around $20 million.[70][71] It made $1.5 million from its Thursday night showings at 2,776 theaters and topped the box office on its opening day, earning $9.2 million.[72][73][74] Through its opening weekend it grossed $24 million from 3,723 theaters, debuting at second place at the box office behindAnt-Man.[75]
On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 18% based on 205 reviews; the average rating is 3.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Much like the worst arcade games from the era that inspired it,Pixels has little replay value and is hardly worth a quarter."[76] OnMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 27 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[77] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[74]
Peter Travers ofRolling Stone gave the film one star out of four, calling it "a 3D metaphor for Hollywood's digital assault on our eyes and brains" and deeming it "relentless and exhausting".[78] InSalon.com, Andrew O'Hehir called the film "another lazy Adam Sandler exercise in80s Nostalgia", as well as "an overwhelmingly sad experience" characterized by "soul-sucking emptiness".[79] Nigel Smith ofThe Guardian called it "casually sexist, awkwardly structured, bro-centric" and said, "Pity the poor souls who go into the comedyblockbuster thinking they've signed up to watchThe Lego Movie by way ofIndependence Day. They'll be disappointed".[80] Joe Neumaier of theNew York Daily News gave the film no stars and wrote, "Someone please retire Adam Sandler.Pixels is the last straw for this has-been...Every joke is forced, every special effect is un-special...The dipstickPixels is about as much fun as a joystick and not even half as smart".[81] "It manages to achieve the weird effect of feeling overlong and choppy at the same time, like someone edited the film with a pair of garden shears," wrote Randy Cordova inThe Arizona Republic.[82]
Marjorie Baumgarten ofThe Austin Chronicle said the film is "flat-footed and grows tedious after the first hour" but praised the 3D effects which "enhances the action".[83] "Everything is wrong here," wrote Megan Garber inThe Atlantic Monthly, "cinematically, creatively, maybe even morally. BecausePixels is one of those bad movies that isn't just casually bad, or shoot-the-moon bad, or too-close-to-the-sun bad, or actually kind of delightfully bad. It is tediously bad."[84] Peter Sobczynski, writing forRogerEbert.com, called the premise promising but the execution "abysmal".[85] Conversely, Katie Walsh of theChicago Tribune was more positive, saying "despite [its] unfortunate shortcomings,Pixels has its funny and fresh moments, thanks in large part to the supporting comic actors and inventive special effects".[86]
| Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Artios Awards | January 22, 2015 | Outstanding Achievement in Casting – Animation Feature | Brad Gilmore | Nominated | [87] |
| Golden Raspberry Awards | February 27, 2016 | Worst Picture | Pixels | Nominated | [88] |
| Worst Actor | Adam Sandler[a] | Nominated | |||
| Worst Supporting Actor | Josh Gad[b] | Nominated | |||
| Kevin James | Nominated | ||||
| Worst Supporting Actress | Michelle Monaghan | Nominated | |||
| Worst Screenplay | Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling(based on a work by Patrick Jean) | Nominated | |||
| Golden Trailer Awards | May 4, 2016 | Golden Fleece | Pixels | Won | [89] |
| Houston Film Critics Society Awards | January 9, 2016 | Worst Film | Pixels | Won | [90] |
| Teen Choice Awards | August 16, 2015 | Choice Summer Movie Star: Male | Adam Sandler | Nominated | [91] |
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