Rise of the Guardians
Rise of the Guardians is a 2012 American 3D computer-animated action fantasy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by Peter Ramsey (in his feature directorial debut) from a screenplay by David Lindsay-Abaire based on the book series "The Guardians of Childhood" and the short film "The Man in the Moon" by William Joyce. It stars Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Jude Law, Isla Fisher, and Hugh Jackman. The film tells a story about Guardians Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman, who enlist  Jack Frost to stop the evil Pitch Black from engulfing the world in darkness in a fight of dreams. The film was released in the United States on November 21, 2012. It grossed $306.9 million worldwide against a budget of $145 million but lost an estimated $87 million due to marketing and distribution costs. It was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film and the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature. It was the last DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by Paramount Pictures. Starting with "The Croods" (2013), 20th Century Fox would  distribute DreamWorks' films until "" (2017). Plot. Jack Frost awakens from a frozen pond with amnesia. Upon realizing that no one can see or hear him, he disappears. Three hundred years later, Jack, as the young Spirit of Winter, enjoys delivering snow days to school kids, but is upset that they do not believe in him. At the North Pole, the Man in the Moon warns Nicholas St. North that Pitch Black is threatening the children of the world with his nightmares. He calls E. Aster Bunnymund/Bunny, the Sandman, and the Tooth Fairy to arms. They are told that Jack  Frost has been chosen to be a new Guardian, and Bunny brings him to the North Pole. North explains to Jack that every Guardian has a center, something they are the Guardian of, but a call for help from Tooth's fairies ends the conversation. Visiting Tooth's world, which resembles a palace in India, Jack learns that each and every baby tooth contains childhood memories of the children who lost it, Jack's teeth included. However, Pitch raids Tooth's home, kidnapping all of her subordinate tooth fairies except Baby Tooth and stealing all the teeth, thus preventing Tooth  from sharing Jack's memories and weakening children's belief in her. In order to thwart Pitch's plan, the group decides to collect children's teeth. During their journey, a quarrel between North and Bunny awakens a boy, Jamie. Since he still believes, he can see everybody except for Jack. Pitch's nightmares then attack, provoking Sandy as the Guardian of Dreams. Jack tries to intervene, but Pitch overwhelms Sandy, who seemingly disappears. As Easter approaches, the dejected Guardians gather in Bunny's home. With the unexpected aid of Jamie's little sister, Sophie, they begin the process of  painting eggs for Easter. After Jack takes Sophie home, he is lured to Pitch's lair by a voice. Pitch taunts him with his memories and fear of non-belief, distracting him long enough for Pitch to destroy the eggs, causing children to stop believing in Bunny, who furiously berates Jack. With the Guardians' trust in him lost, a shamed Jack isolates himself in Antarctica, where Pitch tries to convince him to join his side. When Jack refuses, Pitch threatens to kill Baby Tooth unless Jack gives him his staff, the source of his magic. He agrees, but Pitch breaks  Jack's staff and throws him down a chasm. Unlocking his memories inside his teeth, he learns that he was a mortal teenager who sacrificed himself to save his younger sister, dying from hypothermia and drowning. Inspired, Jack repairs his staff and returns to the lair to rescue the kidnapped tooth fairies. Due to Pitch, every child in the world except Jamie disbelieves, drastically weakening the Guardians. Finding Jamie's belief wavering, Jack makes it snow in his room, renewing Jamie's belief and letting him become the first person to ever believe in and see Jack. They gather Jamie 's friends, whose renewed belief bolsters their fight against Pitch. He threatens them, but their dreams prove stronger than his nightmares, resulting in Sandy's resurrection and the Guardians reuniting. Defeated and no longer believed in, Pitch tries to retreat, but his nightmares, sensing his own fears, turn on him and drag him to the underworld. Afterwards, Jamie and his friends bid goodbye to the Guardians as Jack accepts his place as the Guardian of Fun. Production. In 2005, William Joyce and Reel FX launched a joint venture, Aimesworth Amusements, to produce CG-animated feature films, one of which was  set to be "The Guardians of Childhood", based on Joyce's idea. The film was not realized, but they did create a short animated film, "The Man in the Moon", directed by Joyce, which introduced the Guardians idea, and served as an inspiration for the film. Early in 2008, Joyce sold the film rights to DreamWorks Animation, after the studio assured him it would respect his vision for the characters and that he would be involved with the creative process. In November 2009, it was revealed that DreamWorks had hired Peter Ramsey to make his feature debut as director of  what was then titled "The Guardians", and playwright David Lindsay-Abaire to script, Lindsay-Abaire had previously worked with Joyce by co-writing the screenplay for "Robots". Joyce acted as a co-director for the first few years, but left this position after the death of his daughter Mary Katherine, who died of a brain tumor. Joyce continued to work on the film only as an executive producer, while Ramsey took the helm solo as a full time director, making him the first African American to direct a big-budget CG animated film as well as making it one of  the first Dreamworks films to have only one director instead of two and not have a co-director. As with some previous DreamWorks films, Guillermo del Toro came on board to join Joyce as an executive producer. Present almost from the beginning, he was able to help shape the story, character design, theme and structure of the film. He said he was proud that the filmmakers were making parts of the film "dark and moody and poetic," and expressed hope this might "set a different tone for family movies, for entertainment movies." The final title, "Rise of the Guardians" was  announced in early 2011, along with the first cast. Roger Deakins, the cinematographer who had already worked on the previous DreamWorks' film, "How to Train Your Dragon", advised on the lighting to achieve its real look. He selected photographic references for color keys, and during the production gave notes on contrast, saturation, depth of field and light intensity. The film contains a lot of special effects, particularly the volumetric particles for depicting Sandman and Pitch. For this, DreamWorks Animation developed OpenVDB, a more efficient tool and format for manipulating and storing volume data, like smoke and other amorphous materials. OpenVDB  had been already used on "Puss in Boots" and "", and was released in August 2012 for free as an open-source project with a hope to become an industry standard. Although the film is based on the Joyce's book series, it contains differences from the books. The book series, begun in 2011, explains the origins of the characters, while the film takes place about 300 years after the books, and shows how the characters function in present time. Joyce explained, "Because I don't want people to read the book and then go see the movie and go, 'Oh , I like the book better,' and I also didn't want them to know what happens in the movie. And I also knew that during the progress of film production, a lot of things can change. So I wanted to have a sort of distance, so we were able to invoke the books and use them to help us figure out the world of the movie, but I didn't want them to be openly competitive to each other." The idea for the Guardians came from Joyce's daughter, who asked him "if he thought Santa Claus had ever met  the Easter Bunny." The film includes a dedication to her, as well a song, "Still Dream," sung over the end credits. Originally, the film was set to be released on November 2, 2012, but DreamWorks Animation pushed the film to November 21, 2012 to avoid competition with Pixar's upcoming film "Monsters University", which in turn had been pushed to November 2, 2012 to avoid competition with "". "Monsters University" was then pushed to June 21, 2013, with Disney's "Wreck-It Ralph" taking its place. Music. French composer Alexandre Desplat composed the original music for the film, which was released  on November 13, 2012 by Varèse Sarabande. The score was recorded in London at Abbey Road Studios and Air Studios, and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, with a choral contribution by London Voices. David Lindsay-Abaire wrote the lyrics for the end-credit song, "Still Dream," which was performed by soprano Renée Fleming. Stravinsky's Firebird Suite can also be heard during the scene where North first appears. This film marks the first time that a DreamWorks Animation film has not been composed by Hans Zimmer or a member of his Remote Control Productions family of composers (mainly John  Powell, Henry Jackman, Lorne Balfe, Harry Gregson-Williams or his brother Rupert Gregson-Williams). Release. "Rise of the Guardians" had its premiere on October 10, 2012, at The Mill Valley Film Festival in Mill Valley, California, followed by the international premiere at The International Rome Film Festival on November 13, 2012. Under distribution by Paramount Pictures, the film was released on November 21, 2012, in American theaters. Digitally re-mastered into IMAX 3D, it was shown in limited international and domestic IMAX theaters. It was the second film released in the firm Barco's Auro 11.1 3D audio format, after  Red Tails. The film was also shown in Dolby Atmos, a surround sound technology introduced in 2012. "Rise of the Guardians" was the last DreamWorks Animation film distributed by Paramount, as DreamWorks has signed a five-year distribution deal with 20th Century Fox, which started in 2013 with "The Croods". Home media. "Rise of the Guardians" was released on Blu-ray Disc (2D and 3D) and DVD on March 12, 2013. That was the last DreamWorks Animation home media release to be distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment, since 20th Century Fox announced its distribution agreement with DreamWorks Animation a few  months before the theatrical release. The film was more successful at home media sales than at the box office, having at the end of the second quarter of 2013 "the highest box office to DVD conversion ratio among major releases." In the first quarter of 2013, it sold 3.2 million home entertainment units worldwide, and in the second quarter 0.9 million units, for a total of 4.1 million units. It was re-released on DVD on November 5, 2013 and comes with a wind-up marching elf toy. As of October 2014, 5.8 million home entertainment units were sold worldwide . In July 2014, the film's distribution rights were purchased by DreamWorks Animation from Paramount Pictures and transferred to 20th Century Fox. The rights were moved to Universal Pictures in 2018 after the buyout of DreamWorks Animation by Comcast/NBCUniversal. It was re-released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 5, 2018 by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. Reception. Critical response. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads: "A sort of "Avengers" for the elementary school set, "Rise of  the Guardians" is wonderfully animated and briskly paced, but it's only so-so in the storytelling department." Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 58 based on 37 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale. Carrie Rickey of "The Philadelphia Inquirer" gave the film three and a half stars out of four and found that the film's characters have "a primal familiarity, as though they were developed by a tag  team of Maurice Sendak and Walt Disney." Olly Richards of "Empire" wrote, "It's gorgeously designed, deftly written and frequently laugh-out-loud funny. For child or adult, this is a fantasy to get lost in." "The Washington Post"s Michael O'Sullivan also gave the film a positive review and said, "Thoughts become things. That's the message of "Rise of the Guardians", a charming if slightly dark and cobwebbed animated feature about how believing in something makes it real, or real enough." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three stars out of four and wrote in  his review, "There's an audience for this film. It's not me. I gather younger children will like the breakneck action, the magical ability to fly and the young hero who has tired of only being a name." Though he did say, "Their parents and older siblings may find the 89-minute running time quite long enough." Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" called the film "a lively but derivative 3D storybook spree for some unlikely action heroes." Conversely, Justin Chang in "Variety" said, "Even tots may emerge feeling slightly browbeaten by this colorful, strenuous and hyperactive fantasy, which  has moments of charm and beauty but often resembles an exploding toy factory rather than a work of honest enchantment." Joe Morgenstern of "The Wall Street Journal" found that the film "lacks a resonant center," and that the script, "seems to have been written by committee, with members lobbying for each major character, and the action, set in vast environments all over the map, spreads itself so thin that a surfeit of motion vitiates emotion." Box office. "Rise of the Guardians" grossed $103.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $203.5 million in other countries, for a  worldwide total of $306.9 million. In North America, the film opened to $32.3 million over its extended five-day weekend, and with $23.8 million over the three-day weekend, it reached fourth place behind "", "Skyfall", and "Lincoln". The film's opening was the lowest debut for a DreamWorks Animation film since "Flushed Away". While the film did gross more than double of its $145 million budget, it still did not turn a profit for DreamWorks Animation due to its high production and marketing costs, forcing the studio to take an $87 million write-down. This  marked the first time that the studio had lost money on an animated film since "". As a result of this combined with other factors, in February 2013, the studio announced it was laying off 350 employees as part of a company-wide restructuring. Additionally, the studio was heavily dependent on the success of "Rise of the Guardians" to fund other studio projects, most notably, the ill-fated "Me and My Shadow" project. But due to the failure to gain a stable box office response, it heavily affected the studio's ability to release original movies. Accolades. The Rome Film Festival  and "Vanity Fair" magazine awarded the new Vanity Fair International Award for Cinematic Excellence in November 2012 to "Rise of the Guardians". The film also received the Hollywood Animation Award at the 16th Annual Hollywood Film Festival, held on October 22, 2012. Video game. A video game based on the film was released by D3 Publisher on November 20, 2012 in North America, and released on November 23, 2012 in Europe. It allows gamers to lead the Guardians in their battle against Pitch. The game is a 3D beat-em-up, where the player travels through each of the worlds : Burgess, North Pole, Bunnymund Valley, Tooth Palace, and Sandman's Ship, to fight Pitch's army of Nightmares. The player can switch between all five guardians at any time, and freely customize their powers, and they learn new special abilities as they level up. All the game versions support up to 4-player gameplay. It is available on the Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo 3DS. Possible sequel. After the release of the film, the creators of "Rise of the Guardians" expressed hope that the strong average grade of "A" given to the film by  audiences surveyed by CinemaScore and an enthusiastic word-of-mouth would gather support for the "chance to make a sequel or two." Author and co-producer of the series, William Joyce, also mentioned in March 2013 that he was still in talks about a sequel with DreamWorks Animation: "There is something that we are proposing that we hope they will want to do."