title: Jerry Rice

text: During the 1995 season, Rice had a record-setting campaign. In the first game of the season against the Saints, Rice had six receptions for 87 yards and a touchdown. On October 29, with an eight reception, 108-yard performance, he surpassed James Lofton as the all-time leader in receiving yards against the Saints, with 14,040. Against the Cowboys, he had five receptions for 161 yards and a touchdown. Rice had one of the best statistical games in his career against the Vikings, catching 14 passes for a career-high 289 yards (at the time the fifth-most ever in a game), and three touchdowns. Vikings head coach Dennis Green said of Rice: "We did take the 49ers out of their running game, but Jerry was the one ingredient we had a hard time stopping", "In fact, we had a hard time slowing him down". In the final game of the regular season, he surpassed Art Monk as the all-time leader in receptions, with 942; his performance included 12 receptions for 153 yards, a 41-yard touchdown-throw, and a fumble recovery for a touchdown; his yards total was enough to break the record for most receiving yards in a season, with 1,848 yards, coupled with 122 receptions and 15 touchdowns. He was selected to the Pro Bowl and First-team All-Pro teams. His single-season receiving yards record was not broken until Calvin Johnson broke it in 2012. With an 11–5 record and making the postseason, the 49ers lost in the divisional playoffs to the Packers, in which Rice had 11 receptions for 117 yards.


title: Jerry Rice

text: During the offseason of 1996, Rice and Jackie were expecting their third child, and on May 16, 1996, Jada Rice was born. Minutes after the birth, however, Jackie suffered complications and nearly died from blood loss. She made a recovery after many surgeries. This caused Rice to miss almost all of June mini-camp and one week of training camp; he was supported by his teammates and coaches along the way. Even through these troubles, he recorded 108 receptions (leading the NFL) for 1,254 yards and eight touchdowns. Rice was selected to the Pro Bowl and First-team All-Pro. With a 12–4 record and making the postseason, San Francisco won in the wild card round against the Philadelphia Eagles, but lost to the Packers in the divisional playoffs, as the 49ers were unable to gain any ground with their offense, with only 196 yards of total offense. Through 1994 and 1996, Rice racked up 342 catches for 4,601 yards and 36 touchdowns.


title: Jerry Rice

text: Before the 1997 season, Rice signed a seven-year, $32 million contract. During the 49ers' opening game of the season, Rice tore the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his left knee on a reverse. Warren Sapp of the Buccaneers grabbed Rice by the face mask and wrenched him to the ground, drawing a 15-yard personal foul. The injury broke Rice's streak of 189 consecutive games played; throughout high school, college, and the NFL he had never missed a game excluding three strike games. Wanting to make it back in time for the retirement of Montana's jersey number, he made his return 14 weeks later on December 15, much earlier than doctors wanted him to. He scored a touchdown, but he cracked his left patella as he came down with the catch. He missed the Pro Bowl team for the first time in 11 years due to the injury. San Francisco still made the postseason with a 13–3 record, beating the Vikings in the Divisional Round, but lost for the third straight time against the eventual Super Bowl champion Packers.


title: Jerry Rice

text: However, he made a full recovery, coming back in 1998 to record 82 catches for 1,157 yards and nine touchdowns, becoming the oldest receiver ever to record a 1,000-yard season, at age 36, and returned to the Pro Bowl team. San Francisco made the postseason with a 12–4 record. They faced the Packers once again the Wild Card Round. Though Rice only had one catch for six yards in the game, the 49ers defeated the Packers 30–27. San Francisco was defeated in the Divisional Round by the Atlanta Falcons 18–20. Rice finished the 1999 season with 67 receptions for 830 yards and five touchdowns. The season was the first that Rice failed to reach 1,000 yards receiving while playing in all 16 games. San Francisco struggled as a whole, going 4–12 and missing the postseason, losing 11 out of their last 12 games after Young had concussion troubles, leading him to retire after the season. In the 2000 season, his final season in San Francisco, he again missed 1,000 receiving yards, with 75 receptions for 805 yards and seven touchdowns. Before the start of the season, Bill Walsh had informed Rice that it would be his last. In his final home game against the Bears, he had seven receptions for 76 yards. It was the same game in which Terrell Owens set the single-game record for receptions, with 20. This angered Rice as he wanted it to be a special day for him, not for Owens, and many of Owen's receptions were intentionally called in order for him to break the record. San Francisco once again struggled, going 6–10 and missing the postseason.


title: Jerry Rice

text: With the emergence of Terrell Owens in San Francisco and because of their desire to rebuild the team and clear salary, Rice left the 49ers and signed with the Oakland Raiders for four years, $7.8 million, following the 2000 season. He joined a Raiders team coming off a loss in the playoffs to form one of the oldest receiver duos with Tim Brown (age 35). During the season, he had an eight reception, 131-yard performance with three touchdowns against the Chargers, and a nine reception, 108-yard performance against the Broncos. Rice caught 83 passes for 1,139 yards and nine touchdowns for the year. Oakland finished the season with a 10–6 record and made the postseason. The Raiders played the New York Jets in the Wild Card Round, winning 38–24, with Rice having nine receptions for 183 yards and a touchdown. In the Divisional Round, the Raiders faced Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. In what was later called the "Tuck Rule Game", the Raiders lost in overtime 16–13, after officials ruled a Brady fumble was an incomplete pass, allowing the Patriots to kick the game-tying field goal, all in a severe snowstorm.


title: Jerry Rice

text: In 2002, he caught 92 passes for 1,211 yards and seven touchdowns, while being named to his 13th Pro Bowl team, and to the Second-team All-Pro team. Rice's teammate, Raiders starting quarterback Rich Gannon, was named the NFLs Most Valuable Player for the 2002 season. Against the Tennessee Titans, where Rice had seven receptions for 144 yards and a touchdown, he surpassed Walter Payton as the all-time leader in scrimmage yards, with 21,281 scrimmage yards. He scored his 200th career touchdown against the Broncos. Oakland finished the season with an 11–5 record and made the postseason. They won in the Divisional Round against the Jets, 30–10, and in the AFC Championship Game against the Tennessee Titans, 41–24, making it to the Super Bowl. There, against the Buccaneers, coached by former Raiders head coach Jon Gruden, they were defeated 21–48, with Gannon throwing five interceptions, including three for touchdowns, and Rice having five receptions for 77 yards and a touchdown. Up to this point, Rice had been undefeated in the Super Bowl, having already won four with San Francisco. The fact that he lost a Super Bowl overwhelmed him to the point of crying in his hotel room after the game.


title: Jerry Rice

text: Through the 2003 season, Rice caught 63 passes for 869 yards; he didn't score a touchdown until the 12th game of the season, scoring only two through the whole year. Oakland as a team regressed from their 11–5 record in 2002 to a 4–12 record in 2003, leading to the firing of head coach Bill Callahan. This led Rice to be frustrated about his role with the team. By the time the 2004 season was starting, Rice struggled, and by the fourth game of the season, Rice had five receptions for only 64 yards. Because of this, he asked Raiders owner Al Davis to trade him.


title: Jerry Rice

text: Rice was traded to the Seattle Seahawks six games into the 2004 season in exchange for a 7th round pick and reunited with Seattle head coach Mike Holmgren, who had previously worked with Rice as San Francisco's offensive coordinator. After speaking with Largent, Rice was permitted to wear Largent's retired jersey No. 80. In a "Monday Night Football" game against the Dallas Cowboys, Rice set the career record for combined net yards by catching a 27-yard touchdown pass from Matt Hasselbeck, his 35th career record. He finished that game eight receptions for 145 yards and a touchdown. In total Rice had 25 receptions for 362 receiving yards and three touchdowns with the Seahawks, having 30 receptions for 429 yards and three touchdowns in total for the season. At age 41, he managed to play 17 games in a 16-game season, as he was traded before Oakland's bye week and after Seattle's, and never missed a game, so he played six games for the Raiders and 11 for the Seahawks. Rice played his last non-preseason professional game for Seattle—a to the St. Louis Rams in which he did not catch a pass. After the 2004 season, Rice signed a one-year contract that gave him $790,000 in total salary with the Denver Broncos which was his lowest contract offer in his 20 years in the league. Rice never played for the Broncos, therefore he was only allowed his guaranteed money for a grand total of $25,000.


title: Jerry Rice

text: Just before the 2005 season, on September 5, 2005, Rice officially announced his retirement, at age 43, ending his twenty-season NFL career. In August 2006, the 49ers announced that Rice would sign a contract with them, allowing him to retire as a member of the team where his NFL career began. On August 24, he officially retired as a 49er, signing a one-day contract for $1,985,806.49. The number represented the year Rice was drafted (1985), his No. 80, the year he retired (2006), and the 49ers (49). The figure was ceremonial, and Rice received no money. A halftime ceremony honored him during the 49ers' match-up with the Seattle Seahawks on November 19, 2006.


title: Jerry Rice

text: Rice holds numerous NFL receiving records. His 197 career touchdown receptions are 41 scores more than the second place of 156 touchdown receptions by Randy Moss; his 208 total touchdowns (197 receiving, ten rushing, and one fumble recovery) are 33 scores ahead of Emmitt Smith's second-place total of 175. His 22,895 career receiving yards are 5,403 yards ahead of the second-place Larry Fitzgerald. His 1,256 career points scored make him the highest-scoring non-kicker in NFL history. Many of these records are considered by sports analysts to be unbreakable. During a career spanning two decades, Rice averaged 75.6 receiving yards per game. He received MVP votes in seven out of his 20 seasons, won two NFL Offensive Player of The Year Awards, and a Bert Bell Award in 1987.


title: Jerry Rice

text: Rice is remembered as one of the best clutch players in football history, often making game-winning catches throughout his career. Rice also was noted as an effective blocking receiver. Rice's "famous" catching ability; sometimes attributed to him having to catch bricks when working with his father during his childhood, led him to 1,549 career receptions, 117 ahead of the second-place Fitzgerald.


title: Jerry Rice

text: Despite being keen about his public image early in his career, Rice is remembered for his work ethic and dedication. He still cared extensively about his outward appearance, often tailoring his uniform and jersey, and combed his hair before putting on his helmet; his philosophy was: "If you look good, feel good, you'll play good", as described by Shawn Rogers, one of his friends. In his 20 NFL seasons, Rice missed only 17 regular season games, 14 of them in the 1997 season and the other three in the strike-shortened season of 1987; his 303 games are the most ever by an NFL wide receiver by a wide margin. In addition to staying on the field, his work ethic showed in his dedication to conditioning and running precise routes, with coach Dennis Green calling him "the best route runner I've ever seen". One of the best-known examples of his dedication and ethic was "The Hill," a steep hill in Edgewood County Park & Natural Preserve that is 2.5 miles (4 km) long. Rice would sprint across the hill every day during the offseason to improve his abilities.


title: Jerry Rice

text: In 1999, Rice was ranked No. 2 on the "Sporting News"' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, behind only Jim Brown, and was 35 places ahead of the next-highest-ranked player then active, Deion Sanders. In 2000, Rice won the ESPY Award for Pro Football Player of the Decade for the 1990s. On November 4, 2010, he was ranked No. 1 on "". In 2011, The Sports Network awarded the inaugural Jerry Rice Award, to be given each year to the most outstanding freshman Football Championship Subdivision (formerly I-AA) player. The inaugural winner was Towson running back Terrance West.


title: Jerry Rice

text: In January 2015, Rice stated that he put Stickum, a substance that makes the ball easier to catch and hold on to, on his gloves during his career, saying: "I know this might be a little illegal, guys, but you put a little spray, a little stickum on them, to make sure that texture is a little sticky." Stickum was banned in the NFL in 1981, four years before Rice joined the league; he commented that "all players" in his era used stickum The claims were rebutted by Pro Football Hall of Fame members Cris Carter, and Michael Irvin. Rice retracted his claim shortly thereafter, stating that he "never used Stickum."


title: Jerry Rice

text: Rice was selected for induction in the Pro Football Hall of Fame class of 2010 in his first year of eligibility. He was inducted in Canton, Ohio on August 7, 2010, alongside Emmitt Smith, Floyd Little, Russ Grimm, Rickey Jackson, Dick LeBeau, and John Randle. On September 20, 2010, during halftime of a game against the Saints, the 49ers retired Rice's No. 80 jersey. He was officially named to both the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team and the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. During his career, he was included in the NFL 1980s All-Decade Team and the NFL 1990s All-Decade Team.


title: Jerry Rice

text: Rice married Jacqueline Bernice Mitchell on September 8, 1987. Jacqueline Rice filed for divorce in June 2007, which became final in late December 2009. They have three children together: Jaqui Bonet (born 1987), Jerry Rice Jr. (born 1991), and Jada Symone (born 1996). Jerry Jr., who attended high school at Menlo School in Atherton, California, graduated in 2009. Jerry Jr. was a walk-on at UCLA and redshirted his first season. After three seasons and limited playing time, Jerry Rice Jr. graduated from UCLA and transferred to UNLV, and was eligible to play immediately. Jerry Jr. played wide receiver for the Rebels, and participated in a 49ers local pro day before the 2014 NFL Draft, but was not drafted. Jerry has another son, Brenden Rice, who played football for the University of Colorado for two years. On January 1, 2022, it was announced that Brenden was transferring to the University of Southern California. As of October 21, 2019, Rice is married to Latisha Pelayo whom he had dated since 2008.


title: Jerry Rice

text: During the 2005–2006 broadcasting season, Rice competed in the reality show "Dancing with the Stars". He paired with dancer Anna Trebunskaya, and they reached the final two before losing to singer Drew Lachey and his partner Cheryl Burke. In 2009, Rice portrayed Hal Gore in the film "". In the same year, he guest-starred as himself in the episode "Lyin' King" on the sitcom "Rules of Engagement". Rice has co-authored two books about his life: "Rice" (with Michael Silver, published 1996, ) and "Go Long: My Journey Beyond the Game and the Fame" (with Brian Curtis, published 2007, ). In 2019, he co-authored a book "America's Game: The NFL at 100" (with Randy O. Williams, ), celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Football League. Rice and his dog, Nitus, were featured in "Jerry Rice & Nitus' Dog Football", a video game for the Wii that was released on August 16, 2011. Rice served as an alumni captain for "Team Rice" during the 2014 and 2016 Pro Bowls. In 2022, Rice partnered with the American Red Cross to raise awareness about blood donations.


title: Jerry Rice

text: Rice has played golf for over 20 years and woke up early to play golf during his football career. He competed in the Fresh Express Classic at TPC Stonebrae on the Nationwide Tour on April 15–16, 2010, receiving a sponsor's exemption to play in the tournament. Rice missed the cut and finished one shot ahead of last place, 17-over and 151st among the 152 players who completed two rounds. He was a team captain on The Big Break Puerto Rico, where his team won.


title: Jerry Rice

text: After Colin Kaepernick announced that he would be kneeling during the national anthem during games, Rice criticized his actions, stating in a Twitter post: "All lives matter. So much going on in this world today. Can we all just get along! Colin, I respect your stance but don't disrespect the Flag". He backtracked these statements later that month, after being criticized by the public and other players.


title: Jesse Anderson

text: Jesse Michael Anderson (May 3, 1957 – November 30, 1994) was an American convicted murderer. Anderson was murdered, alongside the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, by fellow inmate and convicted murderer Christopher Scarver at the Columbia Correctional Institution in 1994.


title: Jesse Anderson

text: Anderson was raised in Alton, Illinois. When Anderson was a teenager, his father died of a heart attack and his mother remarried. He attended Alton High School and graduated in 1975. In 1980 he married Debra Ann Eickert and divorced in 1984. Also in 1984, he graduated with a degree in Business Administration from Elmhurst College. On March 30, 1985, he married Barbara E. Lynch in Chicago, Illinois.


title: Jesse Anderson

text: Prior to his arrest for murder, the Andersons lived in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, with their three young children. He was treasurer of the Lions Club and did volunteer work at the Divine Word Catholic Church.


title: Jesse Anderson

text: On April 21, 1992, the Anderson couple went to a movie and dinner at a T.G.I. Fridays outside the Northridge Mall in northwest Milwaukee. After dinner, Jesse stabbed Barbara five times in the face and head, and then stabbed himself four times in the chest, though most of his wounds were superficial. Barbara went into a coma and died from her wounds two days later.


title: Jesse Anderson

text: Anderson blamed two black men for attacking him and his wife. He presented police with a Los Angeles Clippers basketball cap he claimed to have knocked off the head of one of the assailants. When details of the crime were made public, a university student told police Anderson had purchased the hat from him a few days earlier. According to employees at a military surplus store, the red-handled fishing knife that was used to murder Barbara was sold to Anderson a few weeks earlier. Police stated that the store was the only one in Milwaukee that sold that type of knife. On April 29, Anderson was charged with murder. On August 13, he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 60 years.


title: Jesse Anderson

text: On the morning of November 28, 1994, while imprisoned at Columbia Correctional Institution, Anderson and serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer were left unattended while cleaning a restroom at the prison gymnasium with fellow inmate Christopher Scarver. Scarver reported that he was "disgusted" by a newspaper report detailing Dahmer's crimes against black people, and had previously pleaded an insanity defense at his 1992 trial; when asked by a psychiatrist whether he thought his sentence was just, he replied, "Nothing white people do is just". In a 2015 blog post, Scarver disputed some of these statements. After a confrontation with Dahmer and Anderson, Scarver retrieved a steel bar from the weight room, followed Dahmer to the locker room, and struck him on the head. He then tracked down Anderson and bludgeoned him as well. Dahmer was declared dead about one hour after the attack, and Anderson died two days later when doctors at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison removed him from life support.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: Fantastic Mr. Fox is a 2009 American stop motion animated comedy film directed by Wes Anderson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach. The project is based on the 1970 children's novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, and Owen Wilson star. The plot follows the titular character Mr. Fox (Clooney), as his spree of thefts results in his family, and later his community, being hunted down by three farmers known as Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guinness), and Bean (Michael Gambon).


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: Development on the project began in 2004 as a collaboration between Anderson and Henry Selick (who worked with Anderson on the 2004 film "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou") under Revolution Studios. In 2007, Revolution and Selick left for other projects; work on the film was moved to 20th Century Fox, where production began in 2007. Released in the United States on November 13, 2009, to critical acclaim, with praise for Anderson's direction, humor, and stop-motion animation. However, it underperformed at the box office, grossing just $46.5 million against a $40 million budget. The film received Academy Award nominations for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score, losing both awards to "Up".


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: While raiding Berk's Squab Farm, Mr. Fox triggers a fox trap caging himself along with his wife Felicity. Felicity reveals her pregnancy to her husband and pleads with him to find a safer job if they escape, and he agrees.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: Two human years (12 fox years) later, the Foxes and their son Ash are living in a hole. Mr. Fox, now a newspaper columnist, moves the family into a better home inside a tree, ignoring the warnings of his lawyer, Clive Badger, about how dangerous the area is for foxes due to its proximity to facilities run by three farmers: Walt Boggis, Nate Bunce, and Frank Bean.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: Soon after the Foxes move in, Felicity's nephew, Kristofferson Silverfox, comes to live with them due to his father receiving long-term medical treatment for double pneumonia. While Mr. and Mrs. Fox welcome him, Ash finds this situation intolerable, as his soft-spoken cousin is superior to him at almost everything and is charming everyone at his expense. Longing for his days as a thief, Mr. Fox and his opossum friend Kylie, the superintendent, steal produce and poultry from all three farms. They take Kristofferson along on the raids, which deepens Ash's resentment. Mr. Fox conceals these outings from Felicity, who becomes suspicious when unexplained food appears in their larder.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: Angered by the raids, the farmers decide to kill Mr. Fox. They camp out near his home, and when Mr. Fox emerges, they open fire but only shoot off his tail. After demolishing the site of the tree while attempting to dig Mr. Fox out, they discover the Foxes have dug an escape tunnel. As the Foxes will have to surface for food and water, the farmers wait at the tunnel mouth. Underground, Felicity is upset that Mr. Fox returned to his thieving ways.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: The group encounters Badger and many other local animal residents whose homes the farmers have also destroyed. As the animals begin fearing starvation, Mr. Fox calls them together and leads them on a digging expedition to tunnel to the three farms, stealing all of their prized goods. While the animals feast, Ash and Kristofferson begin to reconcile after Kristofferson defends Ash from Beaver's son. The cousins slip away from the celebration and return to Bean's farm, intending to reclaim the missing tail, but Bean's wife captures Kristofferson.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: Discovering that Mr. Fox has stolen their goods, the farmers and the fire chief flood the animals' tunnel network with some of Bean's cider, forcing the animals to retreat to the sewers. Realizing that the farmers plan to use Kristofferson to lure him into an ambush, Mr. Fox heads to the surface to surrender but returns when Rat, Bean's violent security guard, confronts the animals and attacks Ash and Felicity. A fight between Mr. Fox and Rat results in the latter being pushed into a generator, electrocuting him. Before dying, Rat reveals that Kristofferson is being held in an attic on Bean's farm, prompting Mr. Fox to organize a rescue mission.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: Mr. Fox asks the farmers for a meeting in town near the sewer hub, offering to surrender himself on the condition that the farmers free Kristofferson and spare the other animals. The farmers prepare an ambush, but the animals, anticipating it, launch a counterattack that allows Mr. Fox, Ash, and Kylie to enter Bean's farm undetected. Ash frees Kristofferson and impresses his father and the group by braving enemy fire to release a rabid beagle to keep the farmers at bay, allowing the group to escape back to the sewers.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: As the farmers wait for the animals to come out of the hole, the animals settle into their new homes in the sewers, inviting any other animals to join them. Soon after, Fox raids a grocery store owned by the farmers, where Felicity reveals her upcoming pregnancy as the animals dance in the aisle, celebrating their abundant new food source.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: Joe Roth and Revolution Studios bought the film rights to "Fantastic Mr Fox" in 2004. In 2006, Mark Mothersbaugh stated that he was working on the soundtrack. Wes Anderson signed on as director with Henry Selick, who worked with Anderson on "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou", as animation director. Anderson stated that he signed on because Roald Dahl was one of his heroes. Originally, Cate Blanchett was to voice Mrs. Fox, but she left the role for undisclosed reasons.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: The story the novel covers would amount to the second act of the film. Anderson added new scenes to serve for the film's beginning and end. The new scenes precede Mr. Fox's plan to steal from the three farmers and follow the farmers' bulldozing of the hill, beginning with the flooding of the tunnel. Selick left the project, to work on the Neil Gaiman story "Coraline" in February 2006. He was replaced by Mark Gustafson. 20th Century Fox became the project's home in October 2006 after Revolution left for other projects.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: The director chose to record the voices outside rather than in a studio: "we went out in a forest, ... went in an attic, [and] went in a stable. We went underground for some things. There was a great spontaneity in the recordings because of that." The voices were recorded before any animation was done.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: Anderson said of the production design, "We want to use real trees and real sand, but it's all miniature." Great Missenden, where Roald Dahl lived, has a major influence on the film's look. The film mixes several forms of animation but consists primarily of stop motion. Animation took place in London, on Stage C at 3 Mills Studios, and the puppets were created by Mackinnon & Saunders, with Anderson directing the crew, many of whom animated Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride". Selick, who kept in contact with Anderson, said the director would act out scenes while in Paris and send them to the animators via iPhone.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: The score for the film was composed by Alexandre Desplat. Jarvis Cocker commented that he wrote "three, four" songs for the film, one of which was included on the soundtrack ("Fantastic Mr. Fox A.K.A. Petey's Song"). The soundtrack also contains a selection of songs by The Beach Boys, The Bobby Fuller Four, Burl Ives, Georges Delerue, The Rolling Stones, and other artists. A soundtrack album for the film was released on November 3, 2009. A second album featuring additional music from the film was released in 2010.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: The film had its world premiere as the opening film of the 53rd edition of the London Film Festival on October 14, 2009. 20th Century Fox released it theatrically on November 13, 2009.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released the DVD and Blu-ray on March 23, 2010. The Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray and DVD on February 18, 2014.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: "Fantastic Mr. Fox" grossed $21,002,919 in the U.S., and $25,468,104 outside the U.S., making a total of $46,471,023 worldwide.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 93% based on 245 reviews and an average rating of 7.90/10. The site's consensus states: ""Fantastic Mr. Fox" is a delightfully funny feast for the eyes with multi-generational appeal – and it shows Wes Anderson has a knack for animation." The film also became the second highest-rated animated film in 2009 on the site, behind "Up". On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 83 out of 100 based on 34 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four, writing that, like "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory", children may find some aspects of the film perplexing or scary, which he considered a positive element to a children's film. A. O. Scott called "Fantastic Mr. Fox" "in some ways (Wes Anderson's) most fully realized and satisfying film. Once you adjust to its stop-and-start rhythms and its scruffy looks, you can appreciate its wit, its beauty and the sly gravity of its emotional undercurrents. The work done by the animation director, Mark Gustafson, by the director of photography, Tristan Oliver, and by the production designer, Nelson Lowry, shows amazing ingenuity and skill, and the music (by Alexandre Desplat, with the usual shuffle of well-chosen pop tunes, famous and obscure) is both eccentric and just right." Devin D. O'Leary of "Weekly Alibi" called it "a one-of-a-kind family classic".


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: According to "Time", the film is "both a delightful amusement and a distillation of the filmmaker's essential playfulness" and was one of the ten best films of the year. Cosmo Landesman of "The Sunday Times" said "having a quirky auteur like Anderson make a children's film is a bit like David Byrne, of Talking Heads, recording an album of nursery rhymes produced by Brian Eno"; according to Landesman, "in style and sensibility, this is really a Wes Anderson film, with little Dahl. It's missing the darker elements that characterise Dahl's books. There you find the whiff of something nasty: child abuse, violence, misogyny. Gone, too, is any sense of danger. Even the farmers, who are made to look a touch evil, don't seem capable of it. We never feel the tension of watching the Fox family facing real peril. The film certainly has Americanized Dahl's story, and I don't mean the fact that the good animals have American accents and the baddies have British ones. It offers yet another celebration of difference and a lesson on the importance of being yourself. But it does leave you thinking: isn't it time that children's films put children first?"


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: Amy Biancolli from the "Houston Chronicle" stated that "Anderson injects such charm and wit, such personality and nostalgia — evident in the old-school animation, storybook settings and pitch-perfect use of Burl Ives — that it's easy to forgive his self-conscious touches."


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: Ann Hornaday from "The Washington Post" calls it a "self-consciously quirky movie that manages to be twee and ultra-hip at the same time, it qualifies as yet another wry, carefully composed bibelot in the cabinet of curios that defines the Anderson oeuvre." Peter Howell from the "Toronto Star" stated that "[i]n an age when everything seems digital, computer-driven and as fake as instant coffee, more and more artists (Spike Jonze and John Lasseter among them) are embracing the old ways of vinyl records, hand-drawn cartoons and painstaking stop-motion character movements." In 2011, Richard Corliss of "Time" magazine named it one of "The 25 All-Time Best Animated Films".


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: The film was nominated for the 2010 Critics Choice Awards for Best Animated Feature, the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, the 2010 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and Academy Award for Best Original Score; but ultimately lost all the nominations to "Up".


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: It was also nominated for the Grand Prix of the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics. Alexandre Desplat won "Soundtrack Composer of the Year" and "World Soundtrack of the Year" at the 2010 World Soundtrack Awards. On January 14, 2010, the National Board of Review awarded Anderson a Special Filmmaking Achievement award.


title: Fantastic Mr. Fox (film)

text: After giving his acceptance speech, the audio of the speech was used in a short animation of Anderson's character (Weasel) giving the speech, animated by Payton Curtis, a key stop-motion animator on the film.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The Iron Giant is a 1999 American animated science fiction film produced by Warner Bros. Feature Animation and directed by Brad Bird in his directorial debut. It is based on the 1968 novel "The Iron Man" by Ted Hughes (which was published in the United States as "The Iron Giant") and was scripted by Tim McCanlies from a story treatment by Bird. The film stars the voices of Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick Jr., Vin Diesel, James Gammon, Cloris Leachman, John Mahoney, Eli Marienthal, Christopher McDonald, and M. Emmet Walsh. Set during the Cold War in 1957, the film centers on a young boy named Hogarth Hughes, who discovers and befriends a giant alien robot. With the help of a beatnik artist named Dean McCoppin, Hogarth attempts to prevent the U.S. military and Kent Mansley, a paranoid federal agent, from finding and destroying the Giant.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The film's development began in 1994 as a musical with the involvement of the Who's Pete Townshend, though the project took root once Bird signed on as director and hired McCanlies to write the screenplay in 1996. The film was animated using traditional animation, with computer-generated imagery used to animate the Iron Giant and other effects. The understaffed crew of the film completed it with half of the time and budget of other animated features. Michael Kamen composed the film's score, which was performed by the Czech Philharmonic.


title: The Iron Giant

text: "The Iron Giant" premiered at Mann's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles on July 31, 1999, and was released in the United States on August 6. The film significantly underperformed at the box office, grossing $31.3 million worldwide against a production budget of $50 million, which was blamed on Warner Bros.' unusually poor marketing campaign and skepticism towards animated film production following the mixed critical reception and box office failure of "Quest for Camelot" in the preceding year. Despite this, the film was praised for its story, animation, characters, the portrayal of the title character and the voice performances of Aniston, Connick Jr., Diesel, Mahoney, Marienthal, and McDonald. The film was nominated for several awards, winning nine Annie Awards out of 15 nominations. Through home video releases and television syndication, the film gathered a cult following and is widely regarded as a modern animated classic, and one of the greatest animated films ever made. In 2015, an extended, remastered version of the film was re-released theatrically, and on home video the following year.


title: The Iron Giant

text: During the Cold War, an object from space crashes in the ocean just off the coast of Maine and then enters the forest near the town of Rockwell.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The following night, nine-year-old Hogarth Hughes investigates and finds the object, a 50-foot tall alien robot attempting to eat the transmission lines of an electrical substation. Hogarth eventually befriends the Giant, finding him docile and curious. When he eats railroad tracks in the path of an oncoming train, the train collides with him and derails; Hogarth leads the Giant away from the area, discovering that he can self-repair. While there, Hogarth shows the Giant comic books and compares him to the hero Superman.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The incidents lead a paranoid U.S. government agent named Kent Mansley to Rockwell. He suspects Hogarth's involvement after talking with him and his widowed mother, Annie, and rents a room in their house to keep an eye on him. Hogarth evades Mansley and leads the Giant to a junkyard owned by beatnik artist Dean McCoppin, who reluctantly agrees to keep him. Hogarth enjoys his time with the Giant but is compelled to explain the concept of death to the Giant after he witnesses hunters killing a deer.


title: The Iron Giant

text: Hogarth is interrogated by Mansley when he discovers evidence of the Giant after finding a photo of him next to Hogarth and summons a U.S. Army contingent led by General Shannon Rogard to the scrapyard to prove the Giant's existence, but Dean (having been warned by Hogarth earlier) tricks them by pretending that the Giant is one of his art pieces. Later, while playing with a toy gun, Hogarth inadvertently activates the Giant's defensive system; Dean yells at him for nearly killing Hogarth, and the saddened Giant runs away with Hogarth giving chase. Dean quickly realizes that the Giant was only acting in self-defense and catches up to Hogarth as they follow the Giant.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The Giant saves two boys falling from a roof when he arrives, winning over the townspeople. Mansley spots the Giant in the town while leaving Rockwell and has the Army attack the Giant after he has picked up Hogarth, forcing the two to flee together. They initially evade the military by using the Giant's flight system, but the Giant is shot down and crashes to the ground.


title: The Iron Giant

text: Hogarth is knocked unconscious, but the Giant gives in to his defensive system in a fit of rage and grief, transforming into a war machine and returning to Rockwell. Mansley convinces Rogard to prepare a nuclear missile launch from the USS "Nautilus", as conventional weapons prove to be ineffective. Hogarth awakens and returns in time to calm the Giant while Dean clarifies the situation to Rogard.


title: The Iron Giant

text: Rogard is ready to stand down and order the "Nautilus" to deactivate its primed nuke, but a panicked Mansley impulsively orders the missile launch, causing the missile to head towards Rockwell, where it will destroy the town upon impact in the resulting nuclear detonation. Mansley tries escaping after being lectured by Rogard, but the Giant intervenes, and Rogard has Mansley arrested. To save the town, the Giant bids farewell to Hogarth and flies off to intercept the missile. As he soars directly into the missile's path, the Giant remembers Hogarth's words, "You are who you choose to be," smiles contentedly, and declares himself "Superman" as he collides with the weapon. The missile explodes in the atmosphere, saving Rockwell, its population, and the military forces nearby, while the Giant is presumably destroyed, leaving Hogarth, Dean, Annie, and Rogard devastated.


title: The Iron Giant

text: Months later, a memorial of the Giant stands in Rockwell. Dean and Annie begin a relationship. Hogarth is given a package from Rogard containing a screw from the Giant, which is the only remnant found. That night, Hogarth finds the screw trying to move on its own and, remembering the Giant's ability to self-repair, happily allows the screw to leave.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The screw joins many other parts as they converge on the Giant's head on the Langjökull glacier in Iceland, and the Giant smiles as he begins reassembling himself.


title: The Iron Giant

text: In addition, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas voice the train's engineer and fireman, briefly seen near the start of the film. Johnston and Thomas, who were animators and members of Disney's Nine Old Men, were cited by Bird as inspirations for his career, which he honored by incorporating their voices, likenesses, and even first names into the film.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The origins of the film lie in the book "The Iron Man" (1968), by poet Ted Hughes, who wrote the novel for his children to comfort them in the wake of their mother Sylvia Plath's suicide. In the 1980s, rock musician Pete Townshend chose to adapt the book for a concept album; it was released as "" in 1989. In 1991, Richard Bazley, who later became the film's lead animator, pitched a version of "The Iron Man" to Don Bluth while working at his studio in Ireland. He created a story outline and character designs but Bluth passed on the project. After a stage musical was mounted in London, Des McAnuff, who had adapted "Tommy" with Townshend for the stage, believed that "The Iron Man" could translate to the screen, and the project was ultimately acquired by Warner Bros. Entertainment.


title: The Iron Giant

text: In late 1996, while developing the project on its way through, the studio saw the film as a perfect vehicle for Brad Bird, who at the time was working for Turner Feature Animation developing "Ray Gunn". Turner Broadcasting had recently merged with Warner Bros. parent company Time Warner, and Bird was allowed to transfer to the Warner Bros. Animation studio to direct "The Iron Giant". After reading the original "Iron Man" book by Hughes, Bird was impressed with the mythology of the story and in addition, was given an unusual amount of creative control by Warner Bros. This creative control involved introducing two new characters not present in the original book, Dean and Kent, setting the film in America, and discarding Townshend's musical ambitions (who did not care either way, reportedly remarking, "Well, whatever, I got paid"). Bird would expand upon his desire to set the film in America in the 1950s in a later interview:


title: The Iron Giant

text: Ted Hughes, the original story's author, died before the film's release. His daughter, Frieda Hughes, did see the finished film on his behalf and loved it. Pete Townshend, who this project originally started with and who stayed on as the film's executive producer, enjoyed the final film as well.


title: The Iron Giant

text: Tim McCanlies was hired to write the script, though Bird was somewhat displeased with having another writer on board, as he wanted to write the screenplay himself. He later changed his mind after reading McCanlies' then-unproduced screenplay for "Secondhand Lions". In Bird's original story treatment, America and the USSR were at war at the end, with the Giant dying. McCanlies decided to have a brief scene displaying his survival, stating, "You can't kill E.T. and then not bring him back." McCanlies finished the script within two months. McCanlies was given a three-month schedule to complete a script, and it was by way of the film's tight schedule that Warner Bros. "didn't have time to mess with us" as McCanlies said. The question of the Giant's backstory was purposefully ignored as to keep the story focused on his relationship with Hogarth. Bird considered the story difficult to develop due to its combination of unusual elements, such as "paranoid fifties sci-fi movies with the innocence of something like "The Yearling"." Hughes himself was sent a copy of McCanlies' script and sent a letter back, saying how pleased he was with the version. In the letter, Hughes stated, "I want to tell you how much I like what Brad Bird has done. He’s made something all of a piece, with terrific sinister gathering momentum and the ending came to me as a glorious piece of amazement. He’s made a terrific dramatic situation out of the way he’s developed "The Iron Giant". I can’t stop thinking about it."


title: The Iron Giant

text: Bird combined his knowledge from his years in television to direct his first feature. He credited his time working on "Family Dog" as essential to team-building, and his tenure on "The Simpsons" as an example of working under strict deadlines. He was open to others on his staff to help develop the film; he would often ask crew members their opinions on scenes and change things accordingly. One of his priorities was to emphasize softer, character-based moments, as opposed to more frenetic scenes—something Bird thought was a problem with modern filmmaking. "There has to be activity or sound effects or cuts or music blaring. It's almost as if the audience has the remote and they're going to change channels," he commented at the time. Storyboard artist Teddy Newton played an important role in shaping the film's story. Newton's first assignment on staff involved being asked by Bird to create a film within a film to reflect the "hygiene-type movies that everyone saw when the bomb scare was happening." Newton came to the conclusion that a musical number would be the catchiest alternative, and the "Duck and Cover" sequence came to become one of the crew members' favorites of the film. Nicknamed "The X-Factor" by story department head Jeffery Lynch, the producers gave him artistic freedom on various pieces of the film's script.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The financial failure of Warner's previous animated effort, "Quest for Camelot", which made the studio reconsider animated films, helped shape "The Iron Giant"s production considerably. "Three-quarters" of the animation team on that team helped craft "The Iron Giant". By the time it entered production, Warner Bros. informed the staff that there would be a smaller budget as well as time-frame to get the film completed. Although the production was watched closely, Bird commented "They did leave us alone if we kept it in control and showed them we were producing the film responsibly and getting it done on time and doing stuff that was good." Bird regarded the trade-off as having "one-third of the money of a Disney or DreamWorks film, and half of the production schedule," but the payoff as having more creative freedom, describing the film as "fully-made by the animation team; I don't think any other studio can say that to the level that we can." A small part of the team took a weeklong research trip to Maine, where they photographed and videotaped five small cities. They hoped to accurately reflect its culture down to the minutiae; "we shot store fronts, barns, forests, homes, home interiors, diners, every detail we could, including the bark on trees," said production designer Mark Whiting.


title: The Iron Giant

text: Bird stuck to elaborate scene planning, such as detailed animatics, to make sure there were no budgetary concerns. The team initially worked with Macromedia's Director software, before switching to Adobe After Effects full-time. Bird was eager to use the then-nascent software, as it allowed for storyboard to contain indications of camera moves. The software became essential to that team—dubbed "Macro" early on—to help the studio grasp story reels for the film. These also allowed Bird to better understand what the film required from an editing perspective. In the end, he was proud of the way the film was developed, noting that "We could imagine the pace and the unfolding of our film accurately with a relatively small expenditure of resources." The group would gather in a screening room to view completed sequences, with Bird offering suggestions by drawing onto the screen with a marker. Lead animator Bazley suggested this led to a sense of camaraderie among the crew, who were unified in their mission to create a good film. Bird cited his favorite moment of the film's production as occurring in the editing room, when the crew gathered to test a sequence in which the Giant learns what a soul is. "People in the room were spontaneously crying. It was pivotal; there was an undeniable feeling that we were really tapping into something," he recalled.


title: The Iron Giant

text: He opted to give the film's animators portions to animate entirely, rather than the standard process of animating one character, in a throwback to the way Disney's first features were created. The exception were those responsible for creating the Giant himself, who was created using computer-generated imagery due to the difficulty of creating a metal object "in a fluid-like manner." They had additional trouble with using the computer model to express emotion. The Giant was designed by filmmaker Joe Johnston, which was refined by production designer Mark Whiting and Steve Markowski, head animator for the Giant. Using software, the team would animate the Giant "on twos" (every other frame, or twelve frames per second) when interacting with other characters, to make it less obvious it was a computer model. Bird brought in students from CalArts to assist in minor animation work due to the film's busy schedule. He made sure to spread out the work on scenes between experienced and younger animators, noting, "You overburden your strongest people and underburden the others [if you let your top talent monopolize the best assignments]." Hiroki Itokazu designed all of the film's CGI props and vehicles, which were created in a variety of software, including Alias Systems Corporation's Maya, Alias' PowerAnimator, a modified version of Pixar's RenderMan, Softimage 3D, Cambridge Animation's Animo (now part of Toon Boom Technologies), Avid Elastic Reality, and Adobe Photoshop.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The art of Norman Rockwell, Edward Hopper and N.C. Wyeth inspired the design. Whiting strove for colors both evocative of the time period in which the film is set and also representative of its emotional tone; for example, Hogarth's room is designed to reflect his "youth and sense of wonder." That was blended with a style reminiscent of 1950s illustration. Animators studied Chuck Jones, Hank Ketcham, Al Hirschfeld and Disney films from that era, such as "101 Dalmatians", for inspiration in the film's animation.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The score for the film was composed and conducted by Michael Kamen, making it the only film directed by Bird not to be scored by his future collaborator, Michael Giacchino. Bird's original temp score, "a collection of Bernard Herrmann cues from '50s and '60s sci-fi films," initially scared Kamen. Believing the sound of the orchestra is important to the feeling of the film, Kamen "decided to comb eastern Europe for an "old-fashioned" sounding orchestra and went to Prague to hear Vladimir Ashkenazy conduct the Czech Philharmonic in Strauss's "An Alpine Symphony"." Eventually, the Czech Philharmonic was the orchestra used for the film's score, with Bird describing the symphony orchestra as "an amazing collection of musicians." The score for "The Iron Giant" was recorded in a rather unconventional manner, compared to most films: recorded over one week at the Rudolfinum in Prague, the music was recorded without conventional uses of syncing the music, in a method Kamen described in a 1999 interview as "[being able to] play the music as if it were a piece of classical repertoire." Kamen's score for "The Iron Giant" won the Annie Award for Music in an Animated Feature Production on November 6, 1999.


title: The Iron Giant

text: Bird opted to produce "The Iron Giant" in widescreen—specifically the wide CinemaScope aspect ratio—but was warned against doing so by his advisers. He felt it was appropriate to use the format, as many films from the late 1950s were produced in such widescreen formats. He hoped to include the CinemaScope logo on a poster, partially as a joke, but 20th Century Fox, owner of the trademark, refused.


title: The Iron Giant

text: Bird later recalled that he clashed with executives who wished to add characters, such as a sidekick dog, set the film in the present day, and include a soundtrack of hip hop. This was due to concerns that the film was not merchandisable, to which Bird responded, "If they were interested in telling the story, they should let it be what it wants to be." The film was also initially going to be released under the Warner Bros. Family Entertainment banner, the logo which features mascot Bugs Bunny in a tuxedo eating a carrot as seen in the film's teaser trailer. Bird was against this for a multitude of reasons, and eventually got confirmation that executives Bob Daley and Terry Semel agreed. Instead, Bird and his team developed another version of the logo to resemble the classic studio logo in a circle, famously employed in "Looney Tunes" shorts. He credited executives Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Courtney Vallenti with helping him achieve his vision, noting that they were open to his opinion.


title: The Iron Giant

text: According to a report from the time of its release, "The Iron Giant" cost $50 million to produce with an additional $30 million going towards marketing, though Box Office Mojo later reported its budget as $70 million. It was regarded as a lower-budget film, in comparison to the films distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.


title: The Iron Giant

text: When he began work on the film, Bird was in the midst of coping with the death of his sister, Susan, who was shot and killed by her estranged husband. In researching its source material, he learned that Hughes wrote "The Iron Man" as a means of comforting his children after his wife, Sylvia Plath, died by suicide, specifically through the metaphor of the title character being able to re-assemble itself after being damaged. These experiences formed the basis of Bird's pitch to Warner Bros., which was based around the idea "What if a gun had a soul, and didn't want to be a gun?"; the completed film was also dedicated to Hughes and Susan. McCanlies commented that "At a certain point, there are deciding moments when we pick who we want to be. And that plays out for the rest of your life," adding that films can provide viewers with a sense of right and wrong, and expressed a wish that "The Iron Giant" would "make us feel like we're all part of humanity [which] is something we need to feel." When some critics compared the film to "" (1982), Bird responded by saying "E.T. doesn't go kicking ass. He doesn't make the Army pay. Certainly you risk having your hip credentials taken away if you want to evoke anything sad or genuinely heartfelt."


title: The Iron Giant

text: "The Iron Giant" was a commercial failure during its theatrical release; consensus among critics was that its failure was, in part, due to poor promotion from Warner Bros. This was largely attributable to the reception of "Quest for Camelot"; after its release, Warner would not give Bird and his team a release date for their film until April 1999. After wildly successful test screenings, the studio was shocked by the response: the test scores were their highest for a film in 15 years, according to Bird. They had neglected to prepare a successful marketing strategy for the film—such as cereal and fast food tie-ins—with little time left before its scheduled release. Bird remembered that the studio produced only one teaser poster for the film, which became its eventual poster. Brad Ball, who had been assigned the role of marketing the film, was candid after its release, noting that the studio did not commit to a planned Burger King toy plan. IGN stated that "In a mis-marketing campaign of epic proportions at the hands of Warner Bros., they simply didn't realize what they had on their hands."


title: The Iron Giant

text: The studio needed an $8 million opening to ensure success, but they were unable to properly promote it preceding the release. They nearly delayed the film by several months to better prepare. "They said, 'we should delay it and properly lead up to its release,' and I said 'you guys have had two and a half years to get ready for this,'" recalled Bird. Press outlets took note of its absence of marketing, with some reporting that the studio had spent more money on marketing for the intended summer blockbuster "Wild Wild West" instead. Warner Bros. scheduled Sunday sneak preview screenings for the film prior to its release, as well as a preview of the film on the online platform Webcastsneak.


title: The Iron Giant

text: After criticism that it mounted an ineffective marketing campaign for its theatrical release, Warner Bros. revamped its advertising strategy for the video release of the film, including tie-ins with Honey Nut Cheerios, AOL and General Motors and secured the backing of three U.S. congressmen (Ed Markey, Mark Foley and Howard Berman). Awareness of the film was increased by its February 2000 release as a pay-per-view title, which also increased traffic to the film's website.


title: The Iron Giant

text: "The Iron Giant" was released on VHS and DVD on November 23, 1999, with a Laserdisc release following on December 6. Warner Bros. spent $35 million to market the home video release of the film. The VHS edition came in three versions—pan and scan, pan and scan with an affixed Giant toy to the clamshell case, and a widescreen version. All of the initial widescreen home video releases were in 1.85:1, the incorrect aspect ratio for the film. In 2000, television rights to the film were sold to Cartoon Network and TNT for $3 million. Cartoon Network showed the film continuously for 24 consecutive hours in the early 2000s for such holidays as the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The Special Edition DVD was released on November 16, 2004. In 2014, Bird entered discussions with Warner Bros. regarding the possibility of releasing "The Iron Giant" on Blu-ray. On April 23, he wrote on Twitter that "WB & I have been talking. But they want a bare-bones disc. I want better," and encouraged fans to send tweets to Warner Home Video in favor of a Special Edition Blu-ray of the film. The film was ultimately released on Blu-ray on September 6, 2016, and included both the theatrical and 2015 Signature Edition cuts, as well as a documentary entitled "The Giant's Dream" that covered the making of the film. This version also received a DVD release months earlier on February 6 with "The Giant's Dream" documentary removed. This film became available on HBO Max on November 1, 2020.


title: The Iron Giant

text: "The Iron Giant" received critical acclaim from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 96% approval rating based on 142 reviews, with an average rating of 8.20/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "The endearing "Iron Giant" tackles ambitious topics and complex human relationships with a steady hand and beautifully animated direction from Brad Bird." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 85 out of 100 based on 29 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale. The Reel Source forecasting service calculated that "96–97%" of audiences that attended recommended the film.


title: The Iron Giant

text: Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" called it "straight-arrow and subversive, [and] made with simplicity as well as sophistication," writing, "it feels like a classic even though it's just out of the box." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, and compared it, both in story and animation, to the works of Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki, summarizing the film as "not just a cute romp but an involving story that has something to say." "The New Yorker" reviewer Michael Sragow dubbed it a "modern fairy tale," writing, "The movie provides a master class in the use of scale and perspective—and in its power to open up a viewer’s heart and mind." "Time" Richard Schickel deemed it "a smart live-and-let-live parable, full of glancing, acute observations on all kinds of big subjects—life, death, the military-industrial complex." Lawrence Van Gelder, writing for "The New York Times", deemed it a "smooth, skilled example of animated filmmaking." Joe Morgenstern of "The Wall Street Journal" felt it "beautiful, oh so beautiful, as a work of coherent art," noting, "be assured that the film is, before anything else, deliciously funny and deeply affecting."


title: The Iron Giant

text: Both Hollywood trade publications were positive: David Hunter of "The Hollywood Reporter" predicted it to be a sleeper hit and called it "outstanding," while Lael Loewenstein of "Variety" called it "a visually appealing, well-crafted film [...] an unalloyed success." Bruce Fretts of "Entertainment Weekly" commented, "I have long thought that I was born without the gene that would allow me to be emotionally drawn in by drawings. That is, until I saw "The Iron Giant"." Peter Stack of the "San Francisco Chronicle" agreed that the storytelling was far superior to other animated films, and cited the characters as plausible and noted the richness of moral themes. Jeff Millar of the "Houston Chronicle" agreed with the basic techniques as well, and concluded the voice cast excelled with a great script by Tim McCanlies. "The Washington Post" Stephen Hunter, while giving the film 4 out of 5 stars, opined, "The movie — as beautifully drawn, as sleek and engaging as it is — has the annoyance of incredible smugness."


title: The Iron Giant

text: "The Iron Giant" opened at Mann's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles on July 31, 1999, with a special ceremony preceding the screening in which a concrete slab bearing the title character's footprint was commemorated. The film opened in Los Angeles and New York City on August 4, 1999, with a wider national release occurring on August 6 in the United States. It opened in 2,179 theaters in the U.S., ranking at number nine at the box office accumulating $5.7 million over its opening weekend. It was quick to drop out of the top ten; by its fourth week, it had accumulated only $18.9 million—far under its reported $50 million budget. According to Dave McNary of the "Los Angeles Daily News", "Its weekend per-theater average was only $2,631, an average of $145 or perhaps 30 tickets per showing"—leading theater owners to quickly discard the film. At the time, Warner Bros. was shaken by the resignations of executives Bob Daly and Terry Semel, making the failure much worse. T.L. Stanley of "Brandweek" cited it as an example of how media tie-ins were now essential to guaranteeing a film's success.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The film went on to gross $23.2 million domestically and $8.1 million internationally for a total of $31.3 million worldwide. Analysts deemed it a victim of poor timing and "a severe miscalculation of how to attract an audience." Lorenzo di Bonaventura, president of Warner Bros. at the time, explained, "People always say to me, 'Why don't you make smarter family movies?' The lesson is, Every time you do, you get slaughtered."


title: The Iron Giant

text: The Hugo Awards nominated "The Iron Giant" for Best Dramatic Presentation, while the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America honored Brad Bird and Tim McCanlies with the Nebula Award nomination. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave the film a Children's Award as Best Feature Film. In addition "The Iron Giant" won nine Annie Awards out of fifteen nominations, winning every category it was nominated for, with another nomination for Best Home Video Release at The Saturn Awards. IGN ranked "The Iron Giant" as the fifth favorite animated film of all time in a list published in 2010. In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated "The Iron Giant" for its Top 10 Animated Films list.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The film has gathered a cult following since its original release. When questioned over social media if there was ever a possibility of a sequel, Bird stated that because the film was considered a financial flop, a sequel was not likely to ever happen, but also stressed that he considered the story of "The Iron Giant" to be completely self-contained in the film, and saw no need for extending the story.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The Cartoon Network series "Mad", did a parody of the movie as well as the film "The Iron Lady" for their Season 3 premiere entitled "The Iron Giant Lady." In the sketch, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher is the giant and inspires other gynoids to take positions of political power.


title: The Iron Giant

text: In the Season 7 episode of "Futurama" entitled "Assie Come Home", the Iron Giant's head can be seen in Yuri's chop-shop in Filthytown.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The designers of the 2015 video game "Ori and the Blind Forest" were guided by inspirations from the film and Disneys "The Lion King".


title: The Iron Giant

text: The Iron Giant appears in Steven Spielberg's 2018 science fiction film "Ready Player One". Aech had collected the parts of the Iron Giant which she later controlled during the Battle of Castle Anorak.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The Iron Giant appears in Malcolm D. Lee's 2021 basketball film "". He is among the characters in the Warner Bros. 3000 Entertainment Server-Verse that watches the basketball game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad. After the Tune Squad won the game, the Giant shared a fist bump with King Kong.


title: The Iron Giant

text: The Iron Giant appears as a playable character in the fighting game "MultiVersus" on July 26, 2022 as a part of its "open beta".


title: The Iron Giant

text: A remastered and extended cut of the film, named the "Signature Edition", was shown in one-off screenings across the United States and Canada on September 30, 2015, and October 4, 2015. The edition is approximately two minutes longer than the original cut, and features a brief scene with Annie and Dean and the sequence of the Giant's dream. Both scenes were storyboarded by Bird during the production on the original film, but could not be finished due to time and budget constraints. Before they were fully completed for this new version, they were presented as deleted storyboard sequences on the 2004 DVD bonus features. They were animated in 2015 by Duncan Studio, which employed several animators that worked on the original film. The film's "Signature Edition" was released on DVD and for digital download on February 16, 2016, with an official Blu-ray release of this cut following on September 6. Along with the additional scenes, it also showcases abandoned ideas that were not initially used due to copyright reasons, specifically a nod to Disney via a "Tomorrowland" commercial, which was also a reference to his then-recently released film of the same name, and a reference regarding the film being shot with CinemaScope cameras.


title: The Iron Giant

text: In March 2016, coinciding with the release of the "Signature Edition", it was announced that "The Art of the Iron Giant" would be written by Ramin Zahed and published by Insight Editions, featuring concept art and other materials from the film.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Jonathan Howsmon Davis (born January 18, 1971), also known as JD or JDevil, is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. He is best known as the lead vocalist and frontman of nu metal band Korn, who are considered a pioneering act of the nu metal genre. Davis' distinctive personality and Korn's music influenced a generation of musicians and performers who have come after them.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis co-founded Korn in Los Angeles in 1993 with the dissolution of two bands, Sexart and L.A.P.D. He had led Sexart during his years as an assistant coroner. Davis rapidly gained notoriety for his intense and powerful live performances with Korn.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Anchored by his personal, passionate lyrics and unusual tenor vocals, Davis launched a successful career which has spanned almost three decades, although his popularity declined in the middle of the 2000s. Davis' vocals, which alternate from an angry tone to a high-pitched voice, switching from sounding atmospheric to aggressively screaming, have been the trademark of Korn throughout the band's career.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: From 2000 to 2001, Davis and Richard Gibbs wrote and produced the score and soundtrack album of "", his first work outside the band. He began his side project called Jonathan Davis and the SFA in 2007 and continued to experiment with musical styles. He released his first solo album in 2018.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: He has collaborated with various artists over the course of his career, ranging from metal to alternative rock, rap, world music, and electronic music. Davis is a multi-instrumentalist musician who plays guitar, drums, bagpipes, piano, upright bass, violin, and the clarinet. He is also versatile in many genres, mixing tracks and performs DJ sets with his alter ego JDevil. For decades, Davis has been passionate about visual arts, horror films, comics, and video games.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Fourteen of his albums reached the top 10 on the "Billboard 200", including "MTV Unplugged" and "Greatest Hits, Vol. 1". In the U.S, he was awarded fifteen platinum album certifications by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In Australia, he received eight platinum album certifications by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), and in the UK he received six gold certifications. He won two Grammy Awards out of eight nominations throughout his career. As of 2018, Davis has sold over 40 million albums worldwide.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Jonathan Howsmon Davis was born in Bakersfield, California, on January 18, 1971, the son of Holly Marie Chavez ("née" Smith; May 6, 1949 - February 25, 2018) and Ricky Duane "Rick" Davis (born December 14, 1948). His parents married on February 27, 1970. He is of English, German, Scottish, and Welsh descent.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: He has a sister, Alyssa Marie Davis (born February 8, 1974), as well as a half-brother, Mark Chavez (lead singer of Adema; born November 15, 1978), and a half-sister, Amanda Chavez (born July 31, 1981) by his mother. His father was a keyboardist for Buck Owens and Frank Zappa, while his mother was a professional actress and dancer. His parents divorced when he was three years old. He lived with his mother at first, but after experiencing bad situations at that home he moved in with and was raised by his father and former stepmother in Bakersfield, but was made to feel like he "came in and ruined their perfect little family." Davis suffered severe bouts of asthma as a child. Asthma forced him to stay in the hospital every month from the ages of 3 to 10, and he survived a "critical asthma attack" when he was five years old; he said, "My heart stopped, and I didn't see no damn light or hear any music".


title: Jonathan Davis

text: He attended Highland High School; however, he was persistently harassed for wearing eyeliner, baggy clothes, and listening to new wave music. He was constantly called homophobic names, which later inspired the Korn song "Faget". Davis' "HIV" tattoo on his upper left arm was also inspired by his experience of being bullied. At the age of 16, Davis found employment as a coroner's assistant and after graduating high school he immediately enrolled in the San Francisco college's one-year program. He enjoyed his time in San Francisco, where he spent his days poring over embalming textbooks and his nights living and working in funeral homes. Nevertheless, he dropped out after two semesters to apprentice at a mortuary closer to home, in the Kern County Coroner's Department. He was also a professional embalmer for a funeral home.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: He did not get along with his stepmom and has accused her of harassing him and doing things like giving him tea mixed with Thai hot oil and jalapeño juice to drink when he was sick. He also mentioned that she mixed tabasco with his tea. At that time, Davis had sexual fantasies about his stepmother, dreaming of "fucking her and killing her". Though she was later divorced by Davis' father, the Korn song "Kill You" was nonetheless written about her. In an interview for "The Guardian", Davis said he left home when he was 18 because he felt like "public enemy number one", since his stepmother—quoted as "twisted and sadistic"—hated him, and his own father was too embarrassed by the situation to do anything.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis formed his first group with other members in a mysterious formation called Buck Naked, of which only two songs were recorded on demo tapes and distributed to his friends in High School; including New Wave-oriented song "What I Have Done", and a love song "Come With Me". Davis, who worked by day in a mortuary, got free haircuts at a college where guitarist Ryan Shuck was a student. Davis agreed to join Shuck's group called Sexart, which was formed in 1991. Davis described the experience, "I had no clue what I was doing, I didn't know what the hell to do with my voice".


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Early in 1993, ex-band members of L.A.P.D. who had started a new group named Creep, noticed Davis at The John Bryant club in Bakersfield, and were overwhelmed by his performance with Sexart. Subsequently, Davis who was already a friend of Reginald Arvizu, was reluctant to join Creep although he was flattered by the obstinacy of the musicians to integrate him into the group. Nevertheless, he only made the decision to audition with Creep after meeting the psychic who told him that it would be beneficial for him to leave Bakersfield, move to Los Angeles and join them. Davis left Sexart in his early 20s after a convincing rehearsal with the four Creep members, he commented: "I was a little torn, because I was doing Sexart at the time, and that was my band. But I wanted to go and see what it was all about, and from the first note I was hooked. It just all clicked." Enticed by the prospect of a musical career, Davis resigned from his employment at Bakersfield judicial police, and moved to L.A. with his girlfriend to live with David Silveria and Brian Welch in the same house in Huntington Beach. Davis proposed the idea of naming the band as 'Corn'—the spelling would be renamed right after as 'KoЯn'—in reference to the horror film "Children of the Corn" and a sexually explicit story from his gay friend.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis first began working on a solo album in 2007, forming the group Jonathan Davis and the SFA (Simply Fucking Amazings). Although he released two live albums with the group, no studio albums were completed and the band disbanded in 2014 after the death of guitarist Shane Gibson.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In December 2017, Davis began announcing solo tour dates and festival appearances and the launch of his solo album planned for 2018, which would mark Davis' first billed simply as "Jonathan Davis". He said of the album in a 2017 "Louder Sound" interview: "It's the Jonathan Davis And The SFA record, but JD SFA is no longer. Unfortunately, since Shane Gibson passed, that band's done and it can't be recreated. So this is J.D. right now".


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In January 2018, Davis released his first solo single, "What It Is". On January 26, 2018, he released the music video for "What It Is", while the single was included on the movie's soundtrack for "American Satan". At that time, Davis said he was "a big fan" of science fiction movies such as "Blade Runner" and "Dune", and noted being an admirer of Vangelis. On May 25, 2018, he released his debut solo album, "Black Labyrinth" on Sumerian Records. The beginning of the writing process of "Black Labyrinth"—whose thematic focuses on "religion, consumerism and apathy"—was initiated on the road, back in 2007. Davis contributed mainly to the sound of the album, playing guitar, keys, and "anything else he could get his hands on to the record".


title: Jonathan Davis

text: JDevil is the EDM alter ego of Davis. He has been DJing since 1987 while he was still in high school. At 16, before he joined Korn, Davis started out as a DJ working for Pacific West Sound and spun at high school dances and parties on the weekends in Bakersfield. At the time, his teachers were C-Minus, Choc, and Eric and Vidal. He used to spin New York freestyle, Miami bass, old school hip hop, goth, and industrial.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In 2009, he began to DJ again and he introduced JDevil to the world in 2011 at Infected Mushroom appearances.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In 2012, JDevil collaborated with Sluggo and California producer Tyler Blue, and while touring, he started working on an EP and writing every night in the studio of his tour bus. In March 2012 JDevil collaborated with Datsik and Infected Mushroom on a song called "Evilution", the tracks would appear on Datsik's debut album "Vitamin D". JDevil was one of the opening acts for Korn on their The Path of Totality Tour from November 2011 - July 2012 in North America and Europe. While on a short break from touring with Korn in July 2012, JDevil had a short four-day club tour which consisted of The Junkyard in Nashua, New Hampshire, Pufferbellies Entertainment Complex in Hyannis, Massachusetts, Lizard Lounge in Dallas, Texas, and The Garden in El Paso, Texas.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In July 2012, JDevil had signed on to perform at select Identity Festival dates throughout North America. He only performed at two shows, Comcast Center (amphitheater) in Mansfield, Massachusetts and Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Virginia.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In 2012, JDevil was supposed to open for Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson on their Twins of Evil Tour at select dates in North America, but had to drop out of the tour due to exhaustion. Davis stated it was very important for him to evolve in different styles after two decades in Korn, he said in "Rolling Stone": "It keeps me motivated. It keeps me being creative and not getting bored with music." In October 2012, Davis released his EP with his new group called Killbot, the EDM collective including Sluggo and Tyler Blue.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In the early 2000s, while on tour, Davis was looking for artistic hobbies to satisfy his creative impulses and decided to team up with composer Richard Gibbs to write film soundtracks. Davis and Gibbs were introduced to each other through Zomba Music Group, which published their respective music at the time. Shortly after, Warner Bros. asked them to work on the movie "Queen of the Damned", an adaptation of Anne Rice's third novel in "The Vampire Chronicles" and a sequel to the 1994 film "Interview with the Vampire". Ten songs will be composed by the two men, but only five have been kept. These songs includes "System", "Redeemer", "Forsaken", "Slept So Long" and "Not Meant for Me", and sung by the band "The Vampire Lestat" in the movie. While Davis' voice is heard performing the songs in the movie, through the singing voice of Lestat, contractual obligations kept his vocals from appearing on the released in 2002. Aaliyah, who died during filming, was supposed to record a duet with Davis.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In 2000, he created an original fighting game, "Pop Scars", which pits popular musical personalities against each other in one-on-one combat. Participants included members of Limp Bizkit, Staind, Marilyn Manson, and Korn itself. Each celebrity has its own personality and sports character designs sketched by comic book artist Marty Emond, while stages feature environmental traps that impede opponents as they fight. "Pop Scars" never made it past the early design stages, as Davis himself pulled the plug on the project in late 2004.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In 2002, Davis was hired by New Line Television to write and record the theme music of UPN's "The Twilight Zone" television series, hosted by Forest Whitaker.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In 2011, Konami hired Davis and Korn to compose the theme song to the video game "", which led to an online petition to stop the pairing.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis and Korn voiced themselves in season 3 of "South Park" in the episode "Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery", which features them as characters inspired by the cartoon "Scooby-Doo", driving a van similar to the Mystery Machine and trying to solve a mystery about pirate ghosts.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis has also been featured in many other bands' music videos, sometimes with Korn and sometimes solo. He has appeared with Korn in the Limp Bizkit music videos for "Break Stuff" and "Faith".


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis and the rest of Korn appeared in a 2005 episode of the comedy-drama television series "Monk", titled "Mr. Monk Gets Stuck in Traffic".


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In 2009, he collaborated with Infected Mushroom, appearing in the music video for their track "Smashing the Opponent".


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In 2012, JDevil appeared in the Datsik & Infected Mushroom music video for "Evilution", wearing black eye contacts and fake teeth.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In August 2017, Davis voiced Succulentus in an episode of "OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes" titled "Know Your Mom". The character was based on Davis and a parody of Nu-Metal in general.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In 2018, he also worked with the EDM group SKYND for their debut real crime song "Gary Heidnik", appearing in the music video for it as well.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis is a tenor with a vocal range of 4 octaves and 4 notes (from A 1 to E 6). The vocal analysis of The Range Place website has a propensity to lower his higher register (from A1 to F5). In 2014, Davis appeared on the VVN Music's list of "the vocalists with the largest range". According to the vocal range data curated by The Range Place,


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Describing a live performance in Portland, Robert Ham of "Billboard" stated that "not enough can be said about the versatility of Davis' voice, as he explored all the different timbres at his disposal throughout the night. He growled, crooned and wailed with equal amounts of steady force". "The Rough Guide to Rock" writer Essi Berelian described Davis' singing voice: his "unusual style varied between singing, half-rapping and breathless shrieking". Davis is renowned for his guttural—scat singing breakdowns; author Christopher Krovatin wrote that "no aspect of Jonathan's vocals are more widely recognized that his babbled nonsense words reminiscent of the scat vocals used by classic jazz musicians like Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Benjamin "Scatman" Crothers".


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis has said that his earliest musical inspiration during his childhood was the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Jesus Christ Superstar", as his mother was one of the dancers in the movie. His interest in music was more stimulated when he discovered his synth-pop heroes, Duran Duran and the melodies of Simon LeBon who became his major influence. He also grew up listening to '80s music such as Arcadia, Sigue Sigue Sputnik; Bauhaus, Depeche Mode, Thompson Twins; Missing Persons and Flock of Seagulls. Upon listening to his favorite musical genre, Davis would later say, "I was a New Romantic! They even took me to the gay student's counselor just because I wore makeup". He bought Mötley Crüe's album "Shout At The Devil" when he was in seventh grade, then found Ministry, Skinny Puppy, and "old goth stuff" like Christian Death. Davis was first impressed with metal when he heard "Vulgar Display of Power" by Pantera, he stated it was "the metal record that made me wanna do heavy music". During adolescence, Davis played bagpipes on a regular basis. Many reviewers point out stark similarities between the vocals of Davis and several techniques employed by Mike Patton, and the former recognized Patton's bands Faith No More and Mr. Bungle as major influences.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis was interested in pipe band music during his youth, which prefigured later Korn's use of bagpipes in several songs. His great-grandmother was from Scotland and played pipe records for him. Davis was also inspired to play the bagpipes by a scene in the 1982 film "", in which the character Mr. Scott played "Amazing Grace" on the Great Highland bagpipes at the funeral of Mr. Spock. The melancholic sound captivated him. In a "Loudwire" interview, Davis described this moment while watching the film: "everybody tears up, and I'm like...I gotta play bagpipes".


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis' enthusiasm led his grandmother to give him his first set of bagpipes, then he began by joining the Highland High School pipe band, and taking lessons from the band's Scottish conductor. Shortly afterwards he went to a qualified teacher, who went to Scotland and learned. Davis started competing after that, across the United States at established gigs. When the band were ready to record their first album of original material, they realized that something was missing during the recording of the song "Shoots and Ladders". What had begun as "a joke" turned out to be nothing less than an atypical element in the song, and would eventually become the first Korn song to feature a Highland bagpipe.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis does not want to make prominent use of the woodwind instrument and avoids what he worries might be gimmicked or over-use of the pipes. He clarified: "it depends the song, if I'm feeling like there's a spot where I could use it". Korn's repertoire containing Davis' bagpipes includes, "Shoots and Ladders", "Low Rider" (a cover of the song by funk rock band War) from Korn's album" Life is Peachy". Bagpipes are also heard on "My Gift To You", "Dead", "Let's Do This Now", "10 or a 2-Way", "Open Up", "Liar", "Seen It All", "I Wil Protect You", "Lead The Parade", "Spike In My Veins", "Bleeding Out", and "The End Begins". On November 15, 1999, at the Apollo Theater concert, the NYPD Pipes and Drums corps opened the show with "Dead". On July 23, 1999, Davis performed his bagpipe routine in front of more than 250,000 attendees during the Korn concert at the "Woodstock Festival" in New York in a long weekend of anarchy and uproar.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Four months before the release of "Untouchables", in March 2002, during a South America tour, Davis unveiled a microphone stand art piece named "The Bitch", which was created and conceptualized by Swiss artist H.R. Giger. Davis being a fan of Giger's work, the initial idea of a special microphone stand was suggested to him by his personal assistant Jonathan Pavesi. Then, Davis contacted Giger and was pleased when the Swiss artist accepted a commission to come up with a design for the mic stand. He asked Giger for a microphone stand that was both "biomechanical and very erotic", giving him complete freedom of design. In 2000, during the European "Issues" tour, Davis visited the H.R. Giger Museum in Switzerland. Further discussions of Giger's drawings took place, and over time the figure became more streamlined. H.R. Giger and his assistant Roni emailed photos of the progress to the United States; during this process Davis gave his approval and asked him for some minor adjustments, so he could grab it more easily for his live performances. Giger said that Davis' only concern was that it had been "totally functional and as movable as possible". Only five bio-mechanical mic stands cast in the shape of a woman were manufactured at a foundry in Zurich, from molds that were then destroyed, adding to their historic allure and value. Davis had received three of the bio-mechanical microphone stands, and Giger kept the other two, one for permanent display at the H.R. Giger Museum and another for his gallery exhibitions.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis has been sponsored by Shure microphones since the mid 1990s and continues to use them for live performances. He has used wireless KSM9 and KSM8 models in recent years. Davis uses a variety of microphones in the studio including the Telefunken U47 and ELA M 251.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis' childhood is a major influence on Korn lyrics—the song "Daddy" gave rise to a rumor that he was molested by his father, Rick Davis. However, Jonathan has gone on record in many interviews saying he wrote the song about a female family friend who sexually abused him. He said that when he tried to turn to his family as a child to tell them about the abuse, they shrugged it off and did not believe him.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis has been married twice. His first marriage was to his high school sweetheart Renee Perez. They were married in 1998; had one son named Nathan (who also produces music as part of the Bass music-Duo “Hi I'm Ghost”) in 1995; and divorced in 2000. Jonathan married Deven Davis in 2004. The couple have two sons, Pirate and Zeppelin. He filed for divorce in October 2016, citing irreconcilable differences. In 2018, a domestic violence restraining order was issued, blocking any child custody or visitation by Deven, whom Jonathan alleged was deep into drugs. Deven Davis died on August 17, 2018 at the age of 39 of combined drug intoxication from heroin and various prescription drugs.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis had a history of excessive methamphetamine and alcohol consumption during the recording sessions of "Korn" and "Life Is Peachy". Subsequently, he recorded "Follow the Leader" under the influence of methamphetamine, cocaine, and a heavy reliance on alcohol (especially Jack Daniel's). In an interview with "The Ringer", Davis described the album's creation "fueled by cocaine, speed, and just constant gallons of Jack Daniel's". Davis got himself off methamphetamine addiction when he was 28 during the fall's inaugural Family Values Tour and has been sober since August 22, 1998. But sobriety has increased his anxiety and depression which co-occurred with his substance use, exacerbated by the death of his grandfather at that time. During this period, from the late '90s to the early 2000s, Davis was put on suicide watch. In 2010, he admitted that he missed his past vices, Davis said "I know if I did (take drugs), I would be dead and I want to be with my children. It's a deterrent".


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In 2013, Davis was treated for Xanax addiction although he smoked marijuana until 2015. In 2018, Davis stated in "Forbes" that he continues to struggle with chronic anxiety, depression, and insomnia, but has replaced drugs and alcohol with medication such as Prozac, Halcion, Benadryl, ZzzQuil, NyQuil, and Melatonin.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: On August 14, 2021, Davis tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, Korn postponed six summer dates on their U.S. tour and canceled two dates in New York. Korn resumed touring on August 27, 2021 at Tinley Park, Illinois, where the stage featured a custom throne for Davis to sit in. He was seen moving slowly around the stage, coughing, appearing to struggle catching his breath, and occasionally using an oxygen tank. On August 29, Brian Welch posted a video remarking on his bandmate's health, stating, “Jonathan Davis is still struggling with the COVID after-effects. He’s physically weak and having a mental battle. And any type of love, light and energy you can throw at him – prayers, all of it. [...] He needs you more than ever."


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In the early 2000s, Davis began collecting serial killer art and memorabilia, publicly displaying selected items while on the Ozzfest 2003 tour. Some items owned by Davis include the Volkswagen mass murderer Ted Bundy drove for the duration of his murder spree; the "Pogo" and "Patches" clown outfits worn by serial killer John Wayne Gacy; the 1928 confession letter from cannibal Albert Fish; and original drawings by satanic serial murderer Richard Ramirez (also known as the "Night Stalker)".


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In June 2001, the collector of criminal artifacts Arthur Rosenblatt was approached by Davis. Rosenblatt told him of his plan to open a museum of artifacts related to the criminal justice system, which Rosenblatt suggested be named the "Museum of Justice & Odditorium" or "MOJO Museum". In March 2003, Davis suggested funding the museum through a film or TV production. Subsequently, Davis pulled out of the deal which fell apart, leading Rosenblatt to sue him twice; Rosenblatt accused Davis of having spoken to the media in 2002 about his museum project with artist Joe Coleman and mis-naming it "American Curiosities Museum" when he should have used the names provided for in the contract. In the lawsuit, Rosenblatt claimed that Davis and other partners have threatened his life on several occasions. Nevertheless, in December 2005, Davis started selling off his serial killer memorabilia, claiming his desire to move away from this environment, stating: "I don't want that around my kids". In 2006, the litigation was ultimately resolved successfully by Ed McPherson, Davis' attorney. Davis later denounced the items and got rid of them.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis made an appearance in the Oddities documentary series, in the fourth episode of season two entitled "Rock Star Embalmer", which was filmed at Manhattan's Obscura Antiques & Oddities. The episode aired on Discovery Channel on April 30, 2011.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis' home houses a private art collection that spans decades of touring the globe. He has a considerable and diverse collection of works of macabre and dark art, such as a limited edition Ibanez guitar designed by H.R. Giger that looks the same as his mic stand, a human shrunken head from South America, and a human foetus called 'Luther'. His art collection also includes religious art from all over the world and a variety of religions, such as 600-year-old Buddhist sculptures and "tons of crucifixes", especially Mexican Jesus. "I wouldn't say I like religion, but I like the art", reaffirms Davis.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: He has also developed an interest in collection of taxidermy art. In 2015 during an interview with Gavin Lloyd for "Metal Hammer" he said "the taxidermy I got on the walls, I got when we were touring in South Africa. I hired a guide, stalked those animals, shot both of them and donated the meat, which fed families for months. [ ... ] I had to wait a year to get those heads back from Africa, but they're top notch, they're amazing."


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In 2006, Davis explained his political views, saying, "I'm political to a point where it affects human life, from global warming to abortion issues to my gun rights", but expressed no interest in issues like taxation, saying, "I don't really care. Obviously even going out and voting doesn't really count, it's all based down to these Electoral College votes." Davis has expressed support for same-sex marriage and transgender people.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: Davis has expressed support for libertarian Republican Party candidates Ron Paul and Rand Paul. Davis once described Barack Obama as an "Illuminati puppet" and told "Billboard" that Obama had "basically dragged this country down into the worst it's ever been." In 2014, Davis said that the United States was becoming a "police state".


title: Jonathan Davis

text: In 2012, Davis began visiting United States Armed Forces stationed in Europe. On March 16, 2012, Davis made his first visit to Ramstein Air Base, Germany where he visited with personnel assigned to the 86th Airlift Wing and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. The Explosive Ordnance Disposal personnel showed him how to operate the bomb disposal robot and how to render safe an improvised explosive device wearing a Bombsuit. Firefighter personnel showed how to use the water cannon in the new Striker ARFF fire apparatus. Readiness and Emergency Management personnel showed a variety of Chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) detection and protection equipment. He also did a meet and greet signing autographs for the troops and their families at the AAFES Military Mall (Kaiserslautern Military Community Center). He visited wounded warriors from all over the world at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and the USO Wounded Warriors Center.


title: Jonathan Davis

text: On August 11, 2012, Davis made another trip to Ramstein Air Base, Germany to visit with personnel assigned to the 86th Airlift Wing, 37th Airlift Squadron, and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. During this visit, he was able to get a tour of a C-130J, Hercules and Explosive Ordnance Disposal personnel demonstrated a "Hollywood shot" explosive and the destruction a small amount of explosive can do to a car. Again, he visited the wounded warriors at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and the USO Wounded Warriors Center. A documentary of his experiences, "Wounded Warriors" was submitted to the 1st Annual GI Film Festival Hollywood, and won Audience Choice Award on November 10, 2012. As a result of these trips, once Barack Obama awarded Captain Florent Groberg the Medal of Honor, he mentioned how Davis visited Groberg in Germany, and joked that "I am not the lead singer from Korn". While Davis had been a vocal critic of Obama, he expressed shock at the mention, particularly as it was a compliment: "The President of the United States gave me props for being there for a Medal of Honor recipient. Groberg went through hell."


title: Harlan Coben

text: Harlan Coben is an American writer of mystery novels and thrillers. The plots of his novels often involve the resurfacing of unresolved or misinterpreted events in the past, murders, or fatal accidents and have multiple twists. Among his novels are two series, each involving the same protagonist set in and around New York and New Jersey; some characters appear in both.


title: Harlan Coben

text: Coben has won an Edgar Award, a Shamus Award, and an Anthony Award—the first author to receive all three. His books have been translated into 43 different languages and sold over 60 million copies.


title: Harlan Coben

text: Coben was born into a Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey, and was raised in Livingston, where he graduated from Livingston High School, with his childhood friend, future governor Chris Christie.


title: Harlan Coben

text: He studied political science at Amherst College, where he was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity, along with Dan Brown. Coben was in his senior year at college when he realized he wanted to write.