Sky High

**Sky High** is an American live-action film that was released on July 23, 2005.

## Plot

In a world where the children of superheroes are all enrolled in a covert, ever-flying institution called Sky High, teenager Will Stronghold is hesitant to start ninth grade (his first year) at the school. While his parents Steve and Josie (A.K.A. Commander and Jetstream) are renowned superheroes, Will himself has not developed any superpowers and feels the burden to live up to his family's reputation. On his first day at school, while making friendships with other alike students such as Zach, Ethan and Magenta, Will and his long-time friend Layla are bullied by senior students Speed, Lash and Penny, while both are assigned into hero sidekick classes by Coach Boomer after failing to demonstrate potential at his power revelation class.

Despite being welcomed as a superhero and shown the family's "secret sanctum" and the background of how Steve and Josie first met, Will himself takes long to open up to his family, and when he does, the family still decides to support him, despite expressing disappointment. One day in school, Will accidentally get into a fight with pyrokinetic student Warren Peace, and Will's super strength manifests after Warren threatens his friends. While impressing most students, Will and Warren get into detention, maintaining a grudging peace amongst each other. Will's introduction of his superpowers has him transferred into Hero Class, where he works alongside technopath Gwen Grayson, the school's most popular girl, as well as Speed, Lash and Penny, becoming distanced and alienated from his other colleagues. Gwen visits the Stronghold's house, inviting Will's parents to attend the school's Homecoming Dance party, and eventually invites Will as well, wishing to become his girlfriend, which Will accepts. Noticing the growing rift between herself and Will, Layla attempts going out more with Warren in an attempt to arouse jealousy, revealing to him she has loved Will for a long time.

On the night prior to the party, Gwen has Will throw a party into his house where he takes her into the secret sanctum and kisses her. As Layla comes to the house to investigate the noise and discovers the party, she confronts Gwen, who lies to her and has Layla break up with Will. Will himself, when he realizes he's merely being used after trying to talk with Layla, breaks up with Gwen and refuses to attend the dance, even though his parents were invited as honoured guests, remaining behind at his house. At the sanctum, he looks at his family's school yearbook and notices a girl akin to Gwen, named Sue Tenny, holding a mysterious weapon named the Pacifier, which belonged to the Commander's science-themed nemesis Royal Pain, believed to have been killed years ago. Will then notices that the Pacifier itself is missing. Piecing together that the party was a ruse to acquire the Pacifier, and that Gwen is related to Tenny, Will contacts school bus driver Ron Wilson to take him back to Sky High.

At the party, Gwen reveals herself as Royal Pain to the stunned students and teachers of Sky High, as well as the Commander and Jetstream, and unleashes the Pacifier (a weapon that turns anyone into infants) into the crowd, as Speed, Lash and Penny trap everyone but Layla, Warren, Zach, Ethan and Magenta within the school. Arriving too late, Will makes amends with Layla and the others and the sidekicks effectively engage Speed, Lash and Penny while Will confronts Gwen herself. Gwen reveals to Will she's actually Sue Tenny herself, out for revenge against the school after being shunned and placed as a sidekick in her school years and became de-aged herself when her first battle with the Commander and Jetstream caused an accident with the Pacifier, making her be raised by her clown sidekick Stitches. Since then, she plotted her return to destroy Sky High and form a supervillain school, raising the converted teachers and students as villains. While Will fights and eventually defeats Royal Pain, his flying powers emerging in the process, she has the school's anti-gravity device sabotaged and the school free falls, being saved in time by both Will's combined powers and aid from the sidekicks.

Sue, Speed, Lash and Penny are detained as the students, teachers and Will's parents are returned to their proper ages, finally recognizing the sidekicks and their deeds. As Will and Layla become a couple, the final narration states that Ron Wilson became a superhero after falling into a vat of toxic waste, Will and Warren became best friends and Sue, and her henchmen are now Will's archenemies.

## Cast

* Michael Angarano as William "Will" Theodore Stronghold
* Danielle Panabaker as Layla Williams
* Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Gwendolyn "Gwen" Grayson / Royal Pail / Susan "Sue" Tenny
* Steven Strait as Warren Peace
* Dee Jay Daniels as Ethan Bank
* Kelly Vitz as Magenta "Maj" Lewis
* Nicholas Braun as Zachary "Zach" Braun/Zack Attack
* Malika Haqq and Khadijah Haqq as Penny Lent
* Jake Sandvig as Lash
* Lynda Carter as Principal Powers
* Bruce Campbell as Tommy Boomowski/Coach Boomer/Sonic Boom
* Kevin Heffernan as Ron Wilson
* Kurt Russell as Steve Stronghold/The Commander
* Kelly Preston as Josie DeMarco-Stronghold/Jetstream
* Cloris Leachman as Nurse Spex
* Jim Rash as Mr. Grayson/Stitches
* Dave Foley as Jonathan Boy/All-American Boy
* Kevin McDonald as Professor Medulla
* Kim Rhodes as Professor Jeannie Elast/Elastic Girl
* Tom Kenny and Jill Talley as Mr. and Mrs. Chester Timmerman
* Loren Berman as Larry
* Dustin Ingram as Carbon Copy Kid
* Nicole Malgarini as Freeze Girl

## Music

The Sky High Original Soundtrack was released by Hollywood Records on July 26, 2005, and is composed of covers of songs from the 1980s (with the exception of "Just What I Needed", which was from 1978). While none of Michael Giacchino's score was included on the song album, a limited edition of his score was issued by Intrada Records in 2017.

## Production

Exterior shots of the Sky High school were filmed at the Oviatt Library at California State University in Northridge in late 2004.

In between working on the first and second seasons of the animated series Kim Possible, creators Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle had begun writing a script for a live-action adaptation, which ultimately never came to fruition due to unknown reasons. Impressed with their work, the filmmakers asked them to look into re-writing the script for Sky High, which had been previously shelved. McCorkle believes they were recruited for Sky High because "they liked the idea of a superhero high school. I think, reading how we wrote teens in Kim Possible, they felt like, 'This feels good and contemporary, and maybe you can apply that to this project for us.' Similar to Kim Possible, Schooley and McCorkle wrote Sky High to be equally appealing to both children and adults. According to scifi.com, Disney was attracted by the "original concept" of "children of superheroes going to high school", originally conceived by screenwriter Paul Hernandez in the 1990s.

After recruiting comedy writers (creators of Kim Possible) for polishing Hernandez's script (they only wrote the beginning and ending sequences) Disney hired several comedians such as Kevin McDonald, Dave Foley, and Kevin Heffernan for supporting roles. For the main roles, the casting was a mix of established and new teenager actors: while Michael Angarano and Mary Elizabeth Winstead were already successful, Danielle Panabaker was little-known and Steven Strait (a former model) was hired after his first audition ever.

Director Mike Mitchell said that Sky High functions on two premises: "the adults are all insane" and "the girls are smarter than the boys": Therefore, all the adults portrayed in the film tend to be caricatured, while the teenage girls are written as more assertive and powerful than the boys. The film also employed extensive usage of tilted shots. For the treatment of the teenage actors, Mitchell also stated that the actors all had their own trailer and were generally kept separated, because "we did not want them to date after the second week and break up after the fourth", which would have made filming difficult.

Mitchell, a science fiction fan, admitted that this project "was a dream", because it brought him together with four of his favourite SF cult heroes: namely Wonder Woman (popularized in the eponymous 1970s television series by actress Lynda Carter), Snake Plissken (portrayed by Kurt Russell), Ash Williams (from Evil Dead, played by Bruce Campbell) and Cloris Leachman, who earned fame as Frau Blücher in Young Frankenstein; and worked with Lynda Carter before in the pilot movie episode for the Wonder Woman TV series playing Hippolyta opposite Lynda Carter who played Wonder Woman herself.

## Release

### Home Media

The film was released in separate widescreen and full screen format editions on DVD on November 29, 2005. It was also released on VHS but only through Disney Movie Club, making it the final live-action Disney film to be released on VHS. It was also released on high definition Blu-ray for an original widescreen presentation on November 21, 2006.

## Reception

### Box Office

On an estimated budget of $35 million, the film grossed just under $64 million in the U.S., and another $22 million internationally, bringing the total to $86 million.

### Critical Response

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 73% based on reviews from 131 critics, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The site's critical consensus states: "This highly derivative superhero coming-of-age flick is moderately entertaining, family-friendly fluff." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 62 based on reviews from 29 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A- on a scale of A+ to F.

Joe Leydon of Variety magazine praised the film calling it: "Smartly written and sprightly played, Sky High satisfies with a clever commingling of spoofy superheroics, school-daze hijinks" and "this lively live-action Disney release stands on its own merits as a tongue-in-cheek fantasy with cross-generational appeal." Neil Smith at BBC.com wrote: "While originality is hardly the film's strongest suit, its agreeable mix of knowing spoof and kid-pleasing fantasy makes it considerably more engaging than some of the 'straight' superhero blockbusters we've suffered recently."