2000s - Part 2
Year
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Event and Significance
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2006
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The first 9/11 related feature film from Hollywood, on the 5th year anniversary, was released in April. It was Paul Greengrass' and Universal's real-time drama United 93. It was one of filmdom's quickest responses to a disaster, compared to the 7-year gap between the start of the Vietnam War and the release of The Green Berets (1968), the 7 to 9-year gap between the first reported AIDS death and the release of the comedy Casual Sex? (1988) - the first studio film mentioning the risks of AIDS (from having casual sex) and Longtime Companion (1990), the 8-year gap between the first Persian Gulf War and the release of Three Kings (1999), the 9-year gap between Princess Diana's tragic death in 1997 and the controversy surrounding it regarding the British royal family in The Queen (2006), and the 10-year gap between the beginning of Rwandan intertribal genocide and the release of Hotel Rwanda (2004). Another 9/11 related film was Paramount's and Oliver Stone's World Trade Center that opened in late summer, and told the story of two Port Authority cops (Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena) who were among the last rescue workers to be pulled from the rubble.
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2006
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The Walt Disney Co. bought longtime partner Pixar Animation Studios Inc. for $7.4 billion in stock, after a twelve year relationship in which Disney co-financed and distributed Pixar's animated films and split the profits (their previous deal would expire in June 2006 after Pixar delivered Cars (2006)).
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2006
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Maverick film-maker Robert Altman died at the age of 81 in late 2006, with films stretching from the early 1950s to the mid-2000s. His works were trademarked by large ensemble casts and overlapping, inter-weaving sequences and dialogue, as evidenced in Nashville (1975) and The Player (1992). Other notable films included M*A*S*H (1970), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Short Cuts (1993), and Gosford Park (2001). Although he received five Oscar nominations for Best Director (from 1970 to 2001), and one for Best Picture (Gosford Park (2001)), he never won an Oscar.
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2006
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Suffering from thyroid cancer, influential film-critic and reviewer Roger Ebert made his final appearance in the summer of 2006 on his Disney-produced weekly show Ebert & Roeper, co-hosted with another Chicago-based reviewer Richard Roeper since 2000. [Roeper had permanently joined Ebert on the show in 2000 after original co-host Gene Siskel died in 1999.] After Ebert dropped out due to health issues, the show was again renamed At the Movies With Ebert & Roeper in 2007. Roeper co-hosted with a series of celebrity guest hosts, including Jay Leno, Kevin Smith and John Mellencamp. Eventually, Chicago Tribune film critic Michael Phillips became the permanent fill-in for Ebert. The show continued until late summer 2008, when another contract dispute occurred, and Roeper and Ebert became no longer associated with the show. At the Movies was relaunched by Disney in the fall of 2008, featuring Ben Lyons (son of film critic Jeffrey Lyons) and Ben Mankiewicz as the new hosts.
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2006
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During the awards season leading up to the Oscars in early March of 2006, director Ang Lee's western cowboy love story Brokeback Mountain (2005) became the most honored movie in cinematic history, noted for its oft-quoted line: "I wish I knew how to quit you" - referred to its gay-themed content. After an intense publicity campaign, it was regarded as a groundbreaking 'gay' love story of two cowboys that was reaching mainstream audiences and changing the way Hollywood would forever portray gay characters - it also raised consciousness about gay rights. Before the Oscar awards, it also had more Best Picture and Director wins than previous Oscar winners Schindler's List (1993) and Titanic (1997) combined. Just to name a few, the heavily-favored Brokeback won various awards at the Golden Globes, the British Academy (BAFTA), the Producers, Directors and Screen Actors Guilds, the Writers Guild of America, the NY Film Critic's Circle, the LA Film Critics Association, the National Board of Review, and the Independent Spirit Awards. Its eight Academy Award nominations resulted in three Oscar wins: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Director. In a major upset, it lost the Best Picture race to the racial drama underdog Crash. It was theorized that Academy voters (mostly older and urban-dwelling) were uncomfortable with its gay themes, and didn't match the film's demographics (Crash's multi-charactered story was set in Los Angeles during a 36-hour period).
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2006
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Al Gore's film about global warming titled An Inconvenient Truth grossed $24.1 million - setting a record as the third-highest grossing non-IMAX/concert political documentary ever made. It was nominated for two Oscars and won both: Best Original Song ("I Need to Wake Up" by Melissa Etheridge), and Best Documentary Feature.
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2006
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Director Irwin Winkler's R-rated war drama Home of the Brave, a story of four American soldiers (Samuel L. Jackson, Jessica Biel, Brian Presley, and 50 Cent) on their last mission in Iraq when they were ambushed. Subsequently, they suffered both physical and emotional trauma upon readjustment to civilian life in Spokane, Washington. It was the first major Hollywood feature film to depict returning soldiers from the war in Iraq. Made on a budget of $12 million, the film was a serious flop, earning only about $500,000 (worldwide), and only $52,000 domestically. It recouped some of its losses from the sale of DVDs, at $4.7 million.
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2006
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Electronic Arts released The Godfather: The Game, a licensed, mature-rated action/adventure video game inspired by the all-time classic Francis Ford Coppola cinematic masterpiece The Godfather (1972), in which the game-player takes the role of a young man just entering the Corleone family who must work his way to the top, in the world of 1940s New York City. Much of the character likenesses and dialogue from the film were transferred to the game, so all of the lead characters were "voiced" by the actors from the film (except for Al Pacino's voice as Michael Corleone), including a now-deceased Marlon Brando in the role of Don Vito Corleone. Electronic Arts obtained the video game rights to The Godfather from Paramount, which owned the rights to the film property. The game received positive reviews, despite director Coppola's disdain for the game on principle upon its announcement before production in early 2005.
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2006
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The traditional model of theatrical movie distribution was being challenged with a triple-release strategy -- normally, the progression went from theatres, to hotels, to in-flight showings, to DVD a few months later. Director Steven Soderbergh's experimental, independent, R-rated, 73 minute film Bubble (2005), shot on hi-definition video, was the first motion picture released in theatres, while simultaneously available on pay-per-view cable channel HDNet and on DVD (four days later). Likewise, the dramatic comedy 10 Items or Less (2006), the first feature film released by actor/producer Morgan Freeman's joint-venture broadband entertainment service called ClickStar, was the first film in film history to debut in theatres and then become legally and simultaneously available via broadband within two weeks of national theatrical release.
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2006
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Sony's new James Bond star -- 37-year old British actor Daniel Craig was appointed to succeed Pierce Brosnan in 2005 as the 6th James Bond. He appeared in the franchise's highly-successful 21st film (directed by Martin Campbell), a $100-million-plus caper titled Casino Royale -- the title of the first Bond book that Ian Fleming wrote. He was the first blonde Bond. Craig's appearance marked a resurgence or rebirth for the long-running franchise, as a rugged anti-hero. Another new star, Brandon Routh, a 'new' Superman character, starred in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns (2006).
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2006
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Director Bryan Singer's and Warners' Superman Returns (2006) became the world's first live-action Hollywood feature with selected sequences (about 20 minutes) converted from 2D to IMAX 3D. With a rumored $270M budget (and only $200M in domestic returns), it became one of the biggest budgeted flops despite positive reviews and audience reaction. Part of the blockbuster's massive budget was because of the many red-lighted Superman Returns projects with many different scripts, directors and stars (Kevin Smith, Nicolas Cage), etc.
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2006
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70% of teens said that they get their information about sex from the media - mostly from films.
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2006
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The Disney Channel's TV movie High School Musical was their most successful original movie ever produced. The film's soundtrack was the best-selling album in the United States for the year. The plot combined elements of Grease and Romeo and Juliet in its tale of two high school junior sweethearts (portrayed by Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens) who first met during vacation. They were brought together again when they both won lead parts in the high school musical, but trouble brewed since they were from rival cliques.
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2006
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John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus was screened both at the Cannes Film Festival, and at the Toronto International Film Festival - where it was the "most explicit" or sexually-graphic film ever screened; it also had the widest release of any film showing unsimulated sex. It was screened in theaters nationwide, including mainstream cinemas and multiplexes in malls.
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2006
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The first YouTube video was uploaded in late April of 2005 -- entitled Me at the Zoo -- but the site didn't officially launch until November 2005. By mid-2006 (in its first full year of service), over 100 million videos were viewed daily on YouTube.com, and it became the most prominent and popular participatory site for uploading, viewing, and sharing self-produced video clips. Anyone could produce and distribute their own video-media. However, many of them were short clips from copyrighted movies despite their being officially banned by YouTube's terms of service. In late 2006, YouTube was acquired by Google for $1.65 billion (stock). More and more, consumers were viewing video content from online sources, such as YouTube, and relative newcomers Hulu.com, Amazon.com and Apple's iTunes - all examples of new-media revenue streams.
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2006-2007
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These years promised to offer more franchise film sequels (some still being titled) - a lucrative part of a studio's business (when coupled with theatrical revenues, DVD sales, and cross-promotions), such as Mission: Impossible III (2006) (the third film in the series since 1996), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) (originally titled X3, the third film in the series since 2000), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) (the third film in the series since 2001), Batman Begins (2005) (the fifth non-animated feature film since 1989), and Superman Returns (2006) (the fifth film in the series since 1978).
2007 franchise releases included: Spider-Man 3 (2007) (the third film in the series since 2002), Shrek 3 (2007) (the third film in the series since 2001), The Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End (2007) (the third film in the series since 2003), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) (the fifth film in the series since 2001), the third film in the 'Bourne' trilogy - The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) (the first two were released in 2002 and 2004), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2007) (the second in the 7-part Narnia series that began in 2005), Ocean's Thirteen (2007), etc.
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2006
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The third film in the series, Mission: Impossible III failed to be the action-thriller blockbuster that it was destined to be - it had a $47.7 million opening weekend at U.S. theaters, below the $65 million to $70 million that had been projected by some box office trackers. Speculation arose that this was, in part, due to cocky mega-star Tom Cruise's erratic behavior and off-screen public relations disasters, evidenced on NBC's Today Show with Matt Lauer, and the couch-jumping incident on the Oprah Winfrey Show. His strident Scientology advocacy and his denouncements in May 2005 against Brooke Shields regarding her use of anti-depressants for post-partum depression were also the focus of criticisms. At one time, 44 year-old Cruise was the industry's most successful and best-paid actor, but in August was dropped by parent company Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone and by his film studio, Paramount Pictures for his "unacceptable conduct" - after a 14 year production pact.
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2006
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In response to strong demand, LucasFilms finally released the long-awaited release of the unedited, uncut, and original theatrical versions of the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD (sold for the first-time as stand-alone films).
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2006
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Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) broke many records with new benchmarks - it had the largest opening weekend (of three days) ever at $135.6M, surpassing the previous all-time record holders: Spider-Man (2002) which took in $114.8 million in its first weekend, and Spider-Man 2 (2004) which took in $115.8 million in its opening weekend. Dead Man's Chest also took in $55.8 million on its first day (Friday) to beat the previous single-day record of $50 million, set the previous year by Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith (2005). With $44.7 million on its second day (Saturday), Dead Man's Chest also became the first movie to top $100 million in just two days. It also reached $200M and $300M in grosses faster than any film in history (8 and 16 days respectively). And on August 20, it became the seventh film ever to cross $400M at the domestic box office. Spectacularly, it was only the third movie in history to hit the billion dollar mark worldwide (at $1,065,300,000).
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2006
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The biggest box-office films of the years were in several basic categories: CGI animations (Cars, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Over the Hedge, and Happy Feet - another penguin film), comedy films often featuring marquee comedians (Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, The Break-Up, Talladega Nights, The Devil Wears Prada, and Click), films based on international franchises (Casino Royale, The Da Vinci Code), and a few remarkable sequels (X-Men: The Last Stand, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and Superman Returns). By the end of the year, Hollywood grossed $9.1 billion domestically (up 3% over the previous year), and $14.6 billion worldwide (up 11% over the previous year).
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2006
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Signaling a future trend, both Apple and Amazon began offering full-length, on-demand movies on their websites.
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2006
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The first of two controversial yet strangely popular mockumentary comedies was released by Sacha Baron Cohen: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) - about a fictitious anti-Semitic, sexist and racist Kazakh reporter, who traveled through the US and interacted with Americans in unscripted situations. His follow-up film was Bruno (2009) - about a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion journalist.
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2006
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It was announced that actress Reese Witherspoon would attain the highest salary for a female for one film, becoming the highest paid actress of all time, for her $29 million deal to star/produce the horror thriller Our Family Trouble (2011). Her salary beat the previous record of $25 million held by Julia Roberts for Mona Lisa Smile (2003).
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2007
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The first pirated HD (high-definition) DVD download of a movie, available from the BitTorrent network as a 19.6 GB .evo file, was director Joss Whedon's debut feature film Serenity (2005), a space western. It was Universal's first film to be released on HD-DVD (High Definition DVD), available in mid-April 2006, and one of the first films to be released in this format. This marked the beginning of widespread HD-DVD pirating.
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2007
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Hollywood experienced its first-ever $4 billion (North American box-office) summer -- six of the top 10 releases in the summer were sequels: Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Bourne Ultimatum and Live Free or Die Hard.
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2007
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Director Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 set the record for the biggest domestic opening weekend in box-office history, at $151.1 million. The film also had the biggest or highest opening-day, 24-hour gross of all time, at $59.8 million, on May 4, 2007. The film went on to top the year's domestic box-office at $336.5 million.
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2007
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Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End opened at 4,362 theaters on its opening weekend - an all-time record. The film also set the record as the most expensive film ever made (not adjusted for inflation), setting a new bar at $300 million budgeted for production costs.
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2007
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Beowulf, a Robert Zemeckis-directed film that was an adaptation of the Old English epic poem, used advanced motion-capture technology to transform live action into digital animation. This technique was first used in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) for the character of Gollum, and in Zemeckis' own The Polar Express (2004). The film, made with a mega-budget of $150 million, was released simultaneously in standard 2-D and non-Imax 3D versions -- with the biggest 3-D rollout of any film in history. It opened on almost 1,000 digital 3-D screens and in 90 IMAX theaters.
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2007
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From Russia With Love (1963, UK) became the first James Bond film to be broadcast on BBC-TV.
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2007
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At the Golden Raspberry (Razzie) Awards in 2007, Eddie Murphy received a single-year record five nominations for one film: Norbit (2007): three acting nominations (one for each character he played: Norbit, Mr. Wong, and Rasputia), one for Worst Couple (for his multiple characters again) and one for Worst Screenplay. He won three Razzies - for his acting roles (Worst Actor, Worst Supporting Actor, Worst Supporting Actress).
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2007
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The low-budget teen comedy Superbad topped the US box-office charts with a $33 million opening weekend take, and went on to become the highest domestic grossing high school comedy of all time.
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2007
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Director Adam Rifkin's fictional feature film titled Look, with interweaving story-lines, was the first U.S. mainstream movie to depict events solely through the "eyes" and point-of-view of surveillance devices and video cameras (including ATM cameras and robot security cameras) found in shopping malls, dressing rooms, school parking lots, ATM machines, grocery stores, police cars, elevators, offices, storage rooms and on cell phones.
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2007
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In late February of 2007, Netflix (a subscription service launched in September 1999) announced the delivery of its billionth DVD. It took the DVD rental company about seven and a half years to reach that milestone. Netflix claimed it was less time than it took McDonald's to sell one billion hamburgers. In April of 2009, only a little over two years later, it again announced its 2 billionth DVD delivery.
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2007
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The MPAA, formed in 1922, had long warred with filmmakers and studios over the content of films and its voluntary ratings system. Everything came to head with director/producer Kirby Dick's documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006), which demonstrated how difficult it was to learn who served on the MPAA board and how it made ratings decisions. A film's rating could often seriously impact a film's success, and often dictated that a filmmaker's vision had to be edited or revised in order to avoid an NC-17 rating. The MPAA met with independent filmmakers and studio executives at the Sundance Film Festival, and discussed changes and revisions that the organization intended to make - for example, make ratings rules and regulations public, describe the standards for each rating and the appeals process, reveal more about the board's members, and allow a filmmaker to cite scenes in another film when appealing a harsh rating.
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2007
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The highest-grossing movie series of all-time was the Harry Potter films, five films from 2001 to 2007, grossing $4.69 billion (worldwide). Next closest were the 21 Bond films, beginning with Dr. No (1962) through Casino Royale (2006), grossing $4.355 billion (worldwide).
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