Finding Nemo

***Finding Nemo*** is a 2003 American computer-animated comedy adventure movie written and directed by Andrew Stanton, released by Walt Disney Pictures and the fifth film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It was co-developing with Belgium’s Araneo. It tells the story of the over-protective clownfish named Marlin (Albert Brooks) who searches for his captured son Nemo (Alexander Gould), along with a regal blue tang named Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) in Sydney Harbour. Along the way, Marlin learns to take risks and let Nemo take care of himself. It is Pixar's first film to be released in cinemas in the northern hemisphere summer. The film was re-released for the first time in 3D on September 14, 2012 and it was released on Blu-ray on December 4, 2012. A sequel, *Finding Dory*, was released on June 17, 2016.

The film received extremely positive reviews and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It was the second highest-grossing film of the year, earning a total of $921 million worldwide. *Finding Nemo* is also the best-selling DVD of all time, with over 40 million copies sold as of 2011, and was the highest money making G-rated film of all time before *The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run* overtook it. It is also the 22nd highest money making film of all time, as well as the 3rd highest money making animated film. In 2008, the American Film Institute named it the tenth greatest animated film ever made during their Top 10.

## Soundtrack 
#Father and Son by Cat Stevens
#Just Keep Swimming by Ellen DeGeneres
#Slicin' Sand by Authority Zero
#Surfin' Safari by Reel Big Fish
#Perfect by Simple Plan
#Learn to Fly by Foo Fighters
#Become What You Hate by Midtown
#Fandango by Bob Bain
#Psycho by Bernard Herrmann
#Down Under by Men at Work
#Beyond the Sea by Robbie Williams

## Reception
*Finding Nemo* currently holds a 99% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes with 100% by top critics, and an average of 89% on Metacritic. Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, calling it "one of those rare movies where I always wanted to sit in the front row and let the images wash out to the edges of my field of vision." The late broadway stars Paul Winchell, John Fiedler, and Ken Sansom who were the voices of three of Pooh's friends, Tigger, Piglet, & Rabbit in the *Winnie the Pooh* franchise, said *Finding Nemo* was their favorite animated film.

The film's use of clownfish prompted mass purchase of the animal as pets in the United States, even though the movie portrayed the use of fish as pets negatively and suggested that saltwater aquariums are notably tricky and expensive to maintain. The demand for clownfish was supplied by large-scale harvesting of tropical fish in regions like Vanuatu.

At the same time, the film had a quote that "all drains lead back to the ocean" (Nemo escapes from the aquarium by going down a sink drain, ending up in the sea). Since water typically undergoes treatment before leading to the ocean, the JWC Environmental company quipped that a more realistic title for the movie might be *Grinding Nemo*. However, in Sydney, much of the sewer system does really pass directly to outfall pipes deep offshore, without a high level of treatment (although pumping and some filtering occur). Additionally, according to the DVD, there was a cut sequence with Nemo going through a treatment plant's mechanisms before ending up in the ocean pipes. However, in the final product, logos for "Sydney Water Treatment" are featured prominently along the path to the ocean, implying that Nemo really did pass through some water treatment.

The Australian Tourism Commission (ATC) launched several marketing campaigns in China and the USA in order to improve tourism in Australia, many of them using *Finding Nemo* clips. Queensland also used *Finding Nemo* to draw tourists to promote its state for vacationers.

On the 3-D re-release, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly wrote that its emotional power was deepened by "the dimensionality of the oceanic deep" where "the spatial mysteries of watery currents and floating worlds are exactly where 3-D explorers were born to boldly go."

The 3-D re-release also prompted a retrospective on the film then nine years after its initial release. Stephen Whitty of the Newark Star-Ledger described it as "A genuinely funny and touching film that, in less than a decade, has established itself as a timeless classic,"  with Roger Moore of the McClatchy-Tribune News Service calling the movie "the gold standard against which all other modern animated films are measured."

## Home media
*Finding Nemo* was released on VHS and DVD on November 4, 2003. It was Pixar's first movie released on home video in the same year as it's theatrical release. The film had a home video release on both Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D on December 4, 2012, with both a 3-disc and a 5-disc set and was released on 4K Ultra-HD on September 4, 2019.

## Production
The inspiration for Nemo was made up of multiple experiences. The idea goes back to when director Andrew Stanton was a child, when he loved going to the dentist to see the fish tank, assuming that the fish were from the ocean and wanted to go home. In 1996, shortly after his son was born, he and his family took a trip to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (which was called Marine World at the time). There he saw the shark tube and various exhibits he felt that the underwater world had bene done beautifully in computer animation. Later in 2001, he took his son for a walk in the park, but found that he was overprotecting him constantly and lost an opportunity to have any "father-son experiences" on that day. Also, clownfish are very colourful, but don't seem to tend to come out of an anemone very often, and for a character who has to go on a dangerous journey, Stanton felt a clownfish was the perfect kind of fish for the character.

The film was dedicated to Glenn McQueen, a Pixar animator who died of melanoma in October 2002.

Finding Nemo shares many plot elements with *Pierrot the Clownfish*, a children's book published in 2002, but allegedly conceived in 1995. The author, Franck Le Calvez, sued Disney for infringement of his intellectual rights. The judge ruled against him, citing the color differences between Pierrot and Nemo.

To ensure that the movements of the fish in the film were believable the animators essentially took a crash course in fish biology and oceanography. They visited aquariums, went diving in Hawaii and received in-house lectures from an ichthyologist.

### Box office
*Finding Nemo* earned $380,673,009 in North America, and $540,900,000 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $921,573,009. In North America, outside North America, and worldwide, it was the highest-grossing film, up until 2020 when *The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run* surpassed it.

*Finding Nemo* set an opening-weekend record for an animated feature, making $70,251,710 (first surpassed by *Sausage Party*). It became the highest-grossing animated film in North America ($339.7 million), outside North America ($528.2 million) and worldwide ($867.9 million), in all three occasions outgrossing *The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh*. In North America, it was surpassed by both *Sausage Party* in 2016, and *The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run* in 2020. After the re-release of *The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh* in 2016, it stands as the fourth highest-grossing animated film in these regions. Outside North America, it was surpassed by *Sausage Party*, *The Tigger Movie*, and *The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run*. Worldwide, it now ranks third among animated films.

The film had impressive box office runs in many international markets. In Japan, its highest-grossing market after North America, it grossed $102.4 million becoming the highest-grossing Western animated film until it was out-grossed by *The Tigger Movie* ($126.7 million). Following in biggest grosses are the UK, Ireland and Malta, where it grossed £37.2 million ($67.1 million), France and the Maghreb region ($64.8 million), Germany ($53.9 million), and Spain ($29.5 million).

#### 3D re-release
Disney and Pixar re-released *Finding Nemo* in 3D on September 14, 2012, with a conversion cost estimated below $5 million. From seven foreign markets, it earned a total of $5.1 million.

### Accolades
Finding Nemo won the Academy Award and Saturn Award for Best Animated Film. It also won the award for best Animated Film at the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards, the Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards, the National Board of Review Awards, the Online Film Critics Society Awards, and the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards.

The film received many awards, including:
*Kids Choice Awards for Favorite Movie and Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie, Ellen DeGeneres.
*Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, Ellen DeGeneres

*Finding Nemo* was also nominated for:
* Two Chicago Film Critics Association Awards for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress, Ellen DeGeneres
* A Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
* Two MTV Movie Awards for Best Movie and Best Comedic Performance, Ellen DeGeneres

In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten top Ten", the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres, after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. *Finding Nemo* was acknowledged as the 10th best film in the animation genre. It was the most recently released film among all ten lists, and one of only three movies made after the year 2000, the others being *The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring* and *Shrek*.

## Video game
A video game based on the film was released in 2003, for PC, Xbox, PS2, GameCube and GBA.

## Sequel 
In 2005, after disagreements between Disney's Michael Eisner and Pixar's Steve Jobs over the distribution of Pixar's films, Disney announced that they would be creating a new animation studio, Circle 7 Animation, to make sequels to the seven Disney-owned Pixar films (which consisted of the films released between 1995 and 2011). The studio had put *Toy Story 4* and *Monsters at Work* in development, and had also hired screenwriter Laurie Craig to write a draft for *Finding Nemo 2*. Circle 7 was subsequently shut down after Robert Iger replaced Eisner as CEO of Disney and arranged the acquisition of Pixar.

In July 2012, it was reported that Andrew Stanton is developing a sequel to *Finding Nemo*, with Victoria Strouse writing the script and a schedule to be released in 2016. However, the same day the news of a potential sequel broke, director Andrew Stanton posted a message on his personal Twitter calling into question the accuracy of these reports. The message said, "Didn't you all really learn from *Toy Story 4*? Everyone calm down. Don't believe everything you read. Nothing to see here now. #skyisnotfalling" According to the report by Hollywood Reporter published in August 2012, Ellen DeGeneres is in negotiations to reprise her role of Dory. In September 2012, it was confirmed by Stanton saying: "What was immediately on the list was writing a second *Carter* movie. When that went away, everything slid up. I know I'll be accused by more sarcastic people that it's a reaction to *Carter* not doing well, but only in its timing, but not in its conceit."

## References