2000s - Part 1
Year
|
Event and Significance
|
2000
|
The emerging cinema of China, beginning in the mid-1980s and after (i.e., Zhang Yimou's Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and The Story of Qiu Ju (1992), Chen Kaige's Farewell, My Concubine (1993), and Tian Zhuangzhuang's The Blue Kite (1993)), began to capture critical attention. This resurgence culminated in the martial arts film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, with its tale about a stolen sword, gravity-defying martial arts combat and star-crossed lovers. It marked the first major American cross-over success of an Asian action film, and became the highest-grossing sub-titled film ever released in the US, at $128.1 million. It was the first foreign-language film to gross more than $100 million in the US. It received a record 10 Oscar nominations (with four Oscar wins which were presented in 2001, including Best Foreign Language Film).
|
2000s
decade
|
The Hollywood studio system was dominated by six global entertainment companies: Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal, and Disney. These six companies generally farmed out the production of their films to literally dozens of other independents and subsidiaries.
|
2000s decade
|
Film making studios realized that lucrative profits could be scored by cheaply remaking, adapting, or 're-treading' classic TV shows or most prominently -- horror films (i.e., the theatrical re-release of The Exorcist: The Version You Haven't Seen Before (2000) with additional footage, the remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and its prequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006), the Nightmare on Elm Street/Friday the 13th hybrid Freddy vs. Jason (2003), Renny Harlin's prequel Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), Zack Snyder's remake of the Romero film Dawn of the Dead (2004), the crossover film Alien vs. Predator (2004), the remake of the 1979 classic The Amityville Horror (2005), the loose remake of House of Wax (2005), Rob Zombie's reimagined Halloween (2007), My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009), and a reboot of Friday the 13th (2009)).
|
2000
|
Clint Eastwood's directing and acting project, Space Cowboys (2000) used high definition television (HDTV) technology for the first time in a Hollywood feature.
|
2000
|
X-Men, the first in a trilogy of films, was the first major Marvel superhero comic ever adapted for the screen, and also one of the most profitable film franchises (of comics).
|
2000
|
Warner Home Video announced that the DVD of the Oscar-winning The Matrix (1999) had exceeded the 3 million mark in units sold in the U.S., solidifying its position as the # 1 best-selling DVD of all-time. This milestone would repeatedly be surpassed in subsequent years.
|
2000
|
After her early hit Pretty Woman (1990), at the end of the 1990s, mega-star Julia Roberts had four big hit films at the turn of the century - mostly romantic comedies: My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), Notting Hill (1999), Runaway Bride (1999), and Erin Brockovich (2000) - which brought the actress her first Best Actress Oscar. She became the highest-paid actress (and one of the most powerful actresses) in Hollywood at the time, according to Forbes Magazine and other publications. She was the first female to crash the $20 million salary barrier for her role in Erin Brockovich (2000).
|
2000
|
Writer/director Christopher Nolan's time-shifting, episodic, neo-noir independent film Memento was a huge success, for its reverse-chronological order, non-linear innovative structure. The puzzling story told about a man (Guy Pearce) suffering from short-term amnesia while investigating the rape/murder of his wife. It was up for two Academy Award nominations in 2001, but didn't receive any awards.
|
2000
|
The first feature film to be entirely color-corrected by digital means, giving the film a sepia-tinted tone, was the Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou?
|
2000
|
The first major business deal of the 20th century was the America Online (AOL) purchase of Time Warner, Inc. for an estimated $182 billion - in stock ($163 billion) and debt ($17 billion). America Online was one of the largest Internet access subscription service companies and Internet providers in the US. The historic merger, the largest corporate acquisition and the most expensive buyout on record, created a global media and entertainment conglomerate, bringing together America Online and CompuServe on-line services and Netscape's Internet browser with the Warner Brothers studio, Cable News Network (CNN) and the Time publishing empire. At the end of the decade (2009), the merger of the decade ended -- Time Warner announced that it would spin off AOL as a separate independent company.
|
2000
|
The audience participation version of Best Picture-winning The Sound of Music (1965) was first screened in the US in 2000, mimicking the popularity of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). The film's lyrics were captioned to facilitate singing-along, and audience members often dressed up in costume, were provided with 'audience response kits' (Fun Paks included sprigs of fake white flowers to wave during Edelweiss, and party poppers for when the Captain finally kissed Maria) and coached to react to the screen with appropriate crowd responses (boos for Nazis, hisses for the Baroness, and cheers-applause for Maria) and other impromptu wisecracks.
|
2001
|
There were the first two premieres of a pair of much-anticipated, monumental series of films: the Harry Potter films and the Lord of the Rings films. The first film to be adapted from the popular series of young adult books authored by J.K. Rowling was released, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, on track to be one of the most successful film franchises of all time by the end of the decade.
|
2001
|
The first installment of the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy books was released by director Peter Jackson: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Jackson would go on to complete a nine-hour trilogy in the next few years, with two more films: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003).
|
2001
|
A potential strike by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) over their contract threatened to cripple Hollywood.
|
2000s
|
Although the first TiVo digital video recorder (DVR) shipped in early 1999, it wasn't until the decade of the 2000s, after further technological improvements, that it became a commonplace media appliance for recording TV programs - allowing for 'time-shifting' of viewing, and for fast-forwarding through commercials. However, the majority of DVRs in use are now being installed in cable or satellite set-top boxes, threatening to make stand-alone TiVo machines obsolete.
|
2001
|
DVD sales revenues first exceeded VHS videotape sales revenues in 2001.
|
2001
|
One of the most prolific and acclaimed film producers/writers/directors died at the age of 95, Billy Wilder. He won Oscars for Best Director and Best Screenplay for The Lost Weekend (1945), Best Story/Screenplay for Sunset Boulevard (1950), and Best Director and Best Story/Screenplay for The Apartment (1960). He was also noted for directing the classic film noir Double Indemnity (1944), and the hit comedy Some Like It Hot (1959).
|
2001
|
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, the first photo-realistic, fully computer-generated feature film, was premiered. The most complex CG human character ever created was Dr. Aki Ross, who was reported to have 60,000 individual strands of hair. The amount of detail rendered into hair, clothing, skin texture, eyes, and movement was astounding and impressive. The film was inspired by a best-selling series of video games by the film's director, Hironobu Sakaguchi. Its production budget was estimated to be $137 million, with box-office of only $32 million gross income (domestic) and $53 million (foreign) - $85 million total. The massive losses caused the bankruptcy and closing of its production studio, Square Pictures.
|
2001
|
Director Pitof's dark 19th century crime fantasy Vidocq (2001) was the world's first-completed theatrical feature film shot entirely on Hi-Def digital video. This first full-length, all-digital film was shot using a Sony HD-CAM 24P1 (1080p, 24fps) high-definition digital camera, producing astonishing visuals. It was released a year before George Lucas' and Hollywood's first big-budget all-digital production of Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002).
|
2001
|
DreamWorks SKG' Shrek was the first film to win an Academy Award Oscar for Best Animated Feature, a category introduced in 2001. It counteracted the traditional Disney animation formula for a fairy tale with its main character - an ugly, greenish ogre (voice of Mike Myers), with a pop music soundtrack (featuring songs by Joan Jett, Smash Mouth, and others).
|
2001
|
MTV star and actor Tom Green's gross-out, teen-oriented film Freddy Got Fingered (his directorial debut) was rated R -- thereby ironically, possibly preventing some of its teen-aged audience from attending.
|
2001
|
Not Another Teen Movie was released to serve as a parody of Hollywood teen flicks from the last few decades. It used cliched lines of dialogue and most of its characters were stereotypical teen portrayals (for example, the Pretty Ugly Girl, the Popular Jock, the Bitchy Cheerleader, the Token Black Guy, the Dream Girl, the Naked Foreign Exchange Student).
|
2001
|
The delightfully-sweet and quirky French comedy-fantasy Amelie (2001, Fr.), starring Audrey Tatou, earned an unprecedented $33 million (domestic) - it was the highest-grossing French-language film ever in the US.
|
2001
|
Director Patrice Chéreau's French arthouse film Intimacy, her first English-language film, was noted for extremely graphic and explicit sex scenes, heretofore unseen. It portrayed a married woman's (Kerry Fox) engagement in a series of once-weekly, Wednesday afternoon, emotionally-apathetic, physical encounters with emotionally-cold and lonely, divorced bar manager Jay (Mark Rylance). This controversial film exhibited their sexual couplings, with numerous, unflattering and raw, wordless sexual encounters including uncensored fellatio. It was notable as the first theatrically-distributed film to depict the act of fellatio.
|
2001
|
For the first time, African-Americans won in both the Best Actor and Best Actress Oscar categories (awarded in 2002): Denzel Washington for Training Day and Halle Berry for Monster's Ball. Berry's Oscar marked the first time an African-American woman had ever won the top performance award. (Ironically, in 2000, Halle Berry won the Emmy and the Golden Globes awards playing the title role in the critically-acclaimed HBO television movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999). Dandridge was the first African-American actress to be nominated for the Oscar, for Carmen Jones (1954).) Denzel Washington became the first African-American performer to win multiple acting Oscars - in other words, he became the only black actor with two Oscars.
|
2001
|
Paramount's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), starring bust-enhanced Angelina Jolie to look like the video-game heroine, was the highest-grossing action film with a female lead, surpassing Charlie's Angels (2000) and Aliens (1986) - with Sigourney Weaver. The film also became the most successful (top-grossing) movie adapted from a video game, at $131 million (domestic) and $275 million (worldwide). [Other attempts at video-games transitioning to the big screen that did fairly well included: Pokemon: The First Movie (1999), Mortal Kombat (1995), the sequel Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003), and the Resident Evil films (2002-2007); some of the less successful adaptations included Super Mario Brothers (1993), Double Dragon (1994), Street Fighter (1994), Wing Commander (1999), and Doom (2005).] The Lara Croft video game series sold about 21 million units -- the games and associated merchandise brought in about a half billion dollars.
|
2001
|
The cult fantasy sci-fi classic Donnie Darko was about a paranoid, troubled schizophrenic teenager who survived a jet-engine crashing into his bedroom, and had visions of a giant bunny (Frank) who predicted Doomsday in 28 days. The original film was little noticed when originally released, but midnight screenings and the release of the 2004 "Director's Cut" on DVD helped it to become a major cult favorite.
|
2001
|
Australian director Baz Luhrmann's dazzling big-screen musical Moulin Rouge! revolutionized the musical in that its audacious rock-opera soundtrack was composed of well-known pop songs of the late 20th century ("Like a Virgin", "Your Song", "One Day I'll Fly Away" and more), although the setting was a legendary Paris nightclub circa 1900. The film was considered the third of Luhrmann's "Red Curtain" trilogy, following Strictly Ballroom (1992) and William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996).
|
2001-2002
|
Spirited Away became the best-selling Japanese movie of all time, and also was the first anime feature film to win an Academy Award -- Best Animated Feature (awarded in 2002).
|
2002
|
Disney's costly animated film failure, Treasure Planet, was a landmark film -- it was the first film to debut in both the conventional and IMAX formats on the same day (in November).
|
2002
|
Warner Bros.' terrorist-themed action film Collateral Damage (2002), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, originally due to be released on October 5, 2001, was postponed until early February 2002, due to the terrorist bombing of the twin towers of the World Trade Center on 9/11/01.
|
2002
|
One of the trends in the popular genre of horror films was to remake Japanese horror films, culminating in retreads of successful foreign classics, such as Gore Verbinski's The Ring (2002). [Other remakes included The Grudge (2004) (with two sequels in 2006 and 2009), and Dark Water (2005).] These films were low cost to produce, didn't require much originality, big-name (and salary) actors or extensive marketing (because of brand-name recognition), and they had ready-made legions of faithful horror-film devotees. One thing most of the films had in common - they were not favorites of the film critics.
|
2002
|
The independently-produced 'ugly duckling' romantic comedy My Big Fat Greek Wedding, with an unknown cast and a simple premise, became one of the most profitable movies of all time (through word-of-mouth advertising), earning $241.4 million at the box office, while costing only about $5 million to make. It became the very first theatrical film transmitted in high definition by In Demand. It was also the highest-grossing domestic film that was never #1 at the box-office.
|
2002
|
Exiled director Roman Polanski's The Pianist won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Best Director Oscar (awarded in 2003).
|
2002
|
Controversial white rapper Eminem entered the mainstream with the release of his movie 8 Mile (2002). It was the first film with an Oscar-winning rap/hip-hop song ("Lose Yourself").
|
2002
|
Chicago became the first musical to win Best Picture since Oliver! (1968) - 34 years earlier.
|
2002
|
The first in a series of popular Robert Ludlum spy novels adapted for the big screen was released, starring Matt Damon as Jason Bourne. It was The Bourne Identity, followed by The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007).
|
2002
|
George Lucas' second Star Wars pre-quel, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, the fifth film in the hugely successful Star Wars series, was the first big-budget major Hollywood film shot entirely with digital video cameras (at 24 fps) - best screened in theaters equipped with digital projectors. In November, it opened on 58 IMAX screens. (See entry above for Vidocq (2001, Fr.)).
|
2002
|
The first film to make over $100 million in its opening weekend was Sam Raimi's comic-book blockbuster Spider-Man.
|
2002
|
In May 2002, director/writer/producer/star Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine was the first documentary to compete in the Cannes Film Festival's main competition in 46 years, and was the unanimous winner of the festival's 55th Anniversary Prize. It was also the first documentary film to be nominated and then win in 2003 the Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award for Best Original Screenplay. It was also the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award-winner. It was also the highest-grossing documentary of all time, soon to be surpassed by Moore's own Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004).
|
2002
|
The 96-minute long film Russian Ark (aka Russkiy kovcheg) from director Aleksandr Sokurov was the longest single-shot feature-length narrative film (with no cuts) in movie history, as the camera roamed through the halls of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg during 19th century Russia. Its tagline described: "2000 cast members, 3 orchestras, 33 rooms, 300 years, ALL IN ONE TAKE." [Note: Hitchcock's 80 minute-long Rope (1948) was only edited to appear like a single shot.]
|
2002
|
In the second part of the trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, CGI-imagery was combined with "motion capturing" (of the movements and expressions of actor Andy Serkis, who also served as the voice) to produce the barely-seen, supporting character of Gollum (originally known as Sméagol) - noted for saying: "Myyy PRECIOUSSS!" A motion capture suit recorded the actor's movements that were then applied to the digital character.
|
2002
|
The much anticipated online movies-on-demand venture formed by five major Hollywood studios (Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Warner Bros.) was launched in 2002 with the establishment of MovieLink. This marked the first time a large supply of recent, popular films were available legally on the Internet via a broadband connection.
|
2002
|
According to the Guinness Book of Records, World Wrestling Federation's "The Rock" (Dwayne Johnson) received a record salary for his first-time, leading man, top-billed performance as the title character Mathayus in the prequel spin-off The Scorpion King (2002), part of The Mummy franchise series.
|
2002
|
Three of the four top-grossing films (domestic) of the year were sequels: Spider-Man (2002) at $404 million - with its own profitable sequels in 2004 and 2007, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) at $342 million, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) at $311 million, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) at $262 million. In eighth place was the sequel Men in Black II (2002) at $190 million.
|
2003
|
By 2003, film studio revenues from home entertainment (i.e., the video market) were much more lucrative than from theatrical, box-office returns.
|
2003
|
By mid-March of 2003, DVD rentals first topped those of VHS videotape rental revenues. Many of the studios stopped creating VHS versions of their films, and major retail stores stopped selling VHS versions or releases.
|
2003
|
Sofia Coppola was nominated as Best Director for her Best Picture-nominated Lost in Translation, becoming the first American woman nominated for Best Director and only the third woman ever to be nominated for Best Director.
|
2003
|
Finding Nemo, produced by Pixar for The Walt Disney Company, bypassed The Lion King (1994) as the highest-grossing animated film of all time, at $340 million. It received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film (awarded in 2004). As of January 2005, it was the bestselling DVD of all time in the world - with 22 million copies sold. It has remained the highest-grossing (domestic) G-rated film of all time (the PG-rated Shrek 2 (2004) surpassed it as the highest-grossing animation of all time in 2004).
|
2003
|
Disney announced that it would no longer be producing traditionally-hand-drawn animated feature films, but switching to the 3-D, full-CGI style originally popularized by Pixar. It announced that its feature-length theatrical film animation Brother Bear was to be the studio's last 2-D animated film. However, Disney's last release in the traditional 2-D animation style was Home on the Range (2004).
|
2003
|
Miramax's (and boss Harvey Weinstein's) 11-year run (from 1992-2002) of having at least one Best Picture contender each year ended this year, when Cold Mountain lacked a Best Picture nomination. This was the longest streak for any studio since the Academy limited the number of Best Picture nominees to five in 1944.
|
2003
|
The Terminator character (in the same year that Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was released), Austrian-born actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, was sworn in as governor of California shortly after a special recall election of Gov. Gray Davis.
|
2003
|
The last in The Lord of the Rings trilogy of Tolkein's literary fantasy, The Return of the King, won Best Picture and Best Director Oscars (awarded in 2004), as well as nine other awards (it won all eleven of its nominations), for New Line Cinema and New Zealander Peter Jackson, among others. With its eleven Oscars, it tied with Ben-Hur (1959) and Titanic (1997) for the most Oscars ever won by a single film. It also broke the previous record for a sweep (9 wins out of 9 nominations) set by Gigi (1958) and The Last Emperor (1987). Like them, LOTR: The Return of the King lacked nominations in the acting categories. It was the first fantasy film to ever win the top Oscar prize. The film grossed $1 billion in just 9 weeks and 4 days, a new record. In total, the entire LOTR trilogy won 17 Oscars (out of 30 nominations), a $3 billion box-office gross worldwide (they were among the highest grossing films of all time), and some new superstars: virtual Gollum (Andy Serkis), Orlando Bloom and Elijah Wood.
|
2003
|
Director Bernardo Bertolucci's explicitly-rated NC-17 film of sexual discovery and intimacy The Dreamers was the first NC-17 rated film in 6 years, after the release of the NC-17 rated independent film Orgazmo (1997), Bent (1997, UK) and Cronenberg's Crash (1997).
|
2003
|
At the end of the previous decade (in 2000), actor Sylvester Stallone won the Golden Raspberry (Razzie) Award as "The Worst Actor of the Century." By the year 2003, Stallone had compiled a record number of nominations (30) and wins (10) - the actor with the largest number of Razzie nominations and wins.
|
2003
|
One of the worst films ever made and a major box-office flop, Martin Brest's romantic comedy Gigli (2003) was closely scrutinized due to the coupling of its celebrity stars during the film's shoot. The big-budget film was quickly removed after about 3 weeks from circulation in theatres due to its poor reception. It was the first film in the history of the Golden Raspberry (Razzie) Awards to win in its five major categories - a "grand slam sweep": Worst Picture, Worst Actor, Worst Actress, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay -- and it also won Worst Screen Couple, for a total of six wins. It was also honored in 2004 as the Worst Comedy in the first 25 years of the Razzie Awards. Tabloids were addicted to the 'supercouple,' dubbed by the name-blend "Bennifer" (a combination of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez).
|
2003
|
A new generation of comic male actors, dubbed the 'Frat Pack' or 'Slacker Pack' (Jack Black, Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Owen and Luke Wilson) emerged in the 2000s, and appeared together in many films, including Old School (2003), actor/director/producer Stiller's own Zoolander (2001), Dodgeball (2004) and Tropic Thunder (2008).
|
2003
|
The New York Times reported that five months after the start of the Iraq War, the special operations department of the Pentagon held an informational screening in late August, 2003 of director Gillo Pontecorvo's controversial The Battle of Algiers (1966) about terrorist insurgency, to acquire strategic insight from French operations and challenges during the Algerian War (1954-1962). The Pentagon's blurb stated: "How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. ... Children shoot soldiers at point blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film."
|
2000-2005
|
Most of the films in the early part of the decade that were huge moneymakers were either comic-book related (i.e., Spider-Man (2002 and 2004)), serials (i.e., the Star Wars prequels of 1999, 2002 and 2005), animated films (i.e., Finding Nemo (2003) and Shrek 2 (2004)), based on children's fantasy stories (i.e., Harry Potter... (2001-2004) and The Lord of the Rings... (2001-2003)), or based on a theme-park ride (Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)).
|
2004
|
Michael Moore's controversial, election-year Fahrenheit 9/11 won the top prize, Palme D'Or, at the Cannes Film Festival, making it the first US documentary to win the award. It also broke the record for highest opening-weekend earnings in the US for a documentary, and established a significant precedent for a political documentary by being the first ever documentary to cross the $100 million mark in the US (eventually earning $119 million). Disney's refusal to let Miramax release it actually contributed to the film's great success. Moore's film set box-office records as the highest-grossing non-concert, non-IMAX documentary film of all time. However, the film's diatribe against President Bush wasn't able to prevent his re-election in 2004.
|
2004
|
PG-rated Shrek 2 (2004) topped G-rated Finding Nemo (2003) in two ways: it was the biggest opening ever for an animated film (at $108 million in July, 2004), and in a little over three weeks became the highest-grossing animated film of all-time, at $441 million. Shrek (2001) and its lucrative sequel helped DreamWorks' animation division to be successfully spun off as its own unit.
|
2004
|
The record for a film's opening weekend in 2004 belonged to Shrek 2 (2004) that earned $108 million during its opening weekend (in May, 2004). Close behind were Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) grossing $94 million during its opening weekend (in June, 2004), Spider-Man 2 (2004), which grossed almost $88 million during its opening weekend (in June-July, 2004), Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004) (opening weekend in February 2004 at $84 million), and Pixar's The Incredibles which drew a $70.5 million gross in its opening weekend (in November, 2004).
|
2004
|
Hollywood proved that it was more willing to fund sequels, remakes, comic-book and super-hero related films, and recycled TV shows this year instead of smaller-scaled, more intimate dramas that were among the industry's Best Picture nominees. According to box-office attendance figures compared to the last 20 years, the group of Best Picture nominees this year had an extremely low turn-out for viewing - demonstrating the never-ending dichotomy of cinematic art vs. industry profits.
|
2004
|
Writer/director Ken Jacobs, a Beat Generation avant-garde experimental film-maker, finally premiered his reworked and reshaped 402-minute "found footage" epic film Star Spangled to Death (2004), which began production in 1957, at the New York Film Festival (in late 2003).
|
2004
|
Mel Gibson's highly-controversial, blood-soaked and brutal The Passion of the Christ, a reinterpretation of the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus, was extremely profitable (a $370-million-grossing (domestic) phenomenon), due to its unique support by many faithful Christian believers, and the many audiences who wanted to see the accurately-portrayed vision of the final hours with its visceral horrors of flagellation, torture and crucifixion. It set a number of records: (1) the highest-grossing independent film of all time, (2) a record number of pre-ticket sales, more than any other film in history, (3) the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, (4) the highest-grossing (domestic) foreign-language film and/or subtitled film in history, and (5) the highest-grossing (worldwide and domestic) religious (Christian) film of all time. Due to intense criticism over its excessively graphic scenes, Gibson released a second unrated, edited version called The Passion Recut in 2005 - with six fewer minutes and toned-down scenes of the grisly acts of torture.
|
2004
|
In 1994, a Harvard School of Public Health study showed that violence occurred just as frequently in PG, PG-13, and R-rated films. When this study was repeated in 2004, a decade later, it illustrated the existence of "ratings-creep", meaning that more risqué and violent scenes were being allowed in films rated G, PG, PG-13 and R than in the past. It was documented that current films had more sex, violence and profanity than similarly-rated films did a decade ago. Over the 11-year period, sex and violence in PG-rated films increased, as did sex, violence and profanity in PG-13-rated films, and sex and profanity in R-rated films. For example, PG-rated The Santa Clause (1994) had less sex and nudity, violence, gore and profanity than the G-rated The Santa Clause 2 (2002). And R-rated A Time to Kill (1996) had less sex and violence than the PG-13 rated The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). An additional finding was that more violence appeared in animated G-rated movies than in non-animated G-rated movies.
|
2004
|
Able Edwards was the first publicly-released feature film shot entirely without physical sets against a green screen. It was produced with entirely computer-generated sets wholly-created using CGI. Real actors were then shot against the green screens. Another 2004 film produced in similar fashion at the same time was the big-budget Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow with very photo-realistic, all-CGI backgrounds and live actors. Human actors were completely filmed in front of a green/blue screen with no background sets at all. Everything except the main characters was computer-generated. Other 'digital backlot' films included Immortel (Ad Vitam) (2004) and Sin City (2005).
|
2004
|
Pixar's character-oriented, super-hero fantasy adventure animation The Incredibles was a technologically-advanced feature film, their sixth one. It was the first computer-generated animation to successfully show believable human figures or characters, instead of the traditional animal, toy, and creature characters of previous animations. It was also the first Pixar computer-animated feature film to receive a PG-rating in the US.
|
2004
|
Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 (2004) equaled the $200 million mark (for production costs) set by Titanic (1997).
|
2004
|
The innovative documentary film Voices of Iraq (2004) was made by distributing 150 inexpensive, lightweight, digital video-cameras to the people throughout Iraq - the film's subjects and participants. Over 400 hours of film footage was edited down to less than 80 minutes, and although presumably unbiased, it presented a fairly positive view of the US.
|
2004
|
At the Golden Raspberry (Razzie) Awards for 2004, actor Ben Stiller was nominated for Worst Actor for a record five titles in one year - for Along Came Polly (2004), Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), Envy (2004) and Starsky & Hutch (2004).
|
2004
|
At age 96, actress Fay Wray died, best known for portraying the first archetypal scream queen or horror-film heroine - a blonde damsel-in-distress named Ann Darrow, in the classic film King Kong (1933), that saved RKO from bankruptcy. She began her career during the silent era (in 1923) and appeared in hundreds of films, most notably in horror films including Doctor X (1932) and The Vampire Bat (1933) - her last feature Dragstrip Riot (1958).
|
2004
|
Ronald Reagan, the former 40th President of the US (1981-1989), the oldest man ever elected President, and former Hollywood film and TV actor, known for such films as Knute Rockne, All American (1940), Kings Row (1942) and Bedtime for Bonzo (1951), died at the age of 93, due to complications from Alzheimer's disease.
|
2005
|
Semi-offensive R-rated comedies, including retooled romantic comedies and 'bromances' (guy-meets-guy romances) containing generous portions of profanity, sex and nudity, and debauchery, were shown to be popular - and appealing to male audiences. Two hit comedies in 2005 proved that pushing the boundaries of good taste were profitable: Wedding Crashers (2005) and Judd Apatow's breakthrough film The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005). Apatow also directed Knocked Up (2007) and Funny People (2009) and served as producer for the successful Anchorman (2004), Talladega Nights (2006), the genitalia-obsessed Superbad (2007), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) and the slapstick buddy-comedy Step Brothers (2008). He helped to foster the burgeoning careers of Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen.
|
2005
|
The action sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), the first Sony Pictures film, was also the first feature film to be released on Blu-Ray Disc, a next generation, high-definition optical disc format pioneered by Sony, providing increased storage capacity and advanced HD video and audio. Its higher capacity and performance were expected to sufficiently meet the future demands and expectations of high definition (HD) movie distribution and personal video recording.
|
2005
|
The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 was introduced to Congress, designed to make technology available (legal filtering devices, such as DVD players provided by the ClearPlay company) to parents that will help shield children from unwanted violence, sex and profanity in movies. This bill made it legal to alter (or sanitize) a motion picture to edit out audio and video content that may not suit minors (i.e., CleanFlicks rents out edited DVDs). In addition, file sharing and movie piracy (i.e., camcordering films in theaters, pre-releasing pirated copies of copyrighted films, etc.) would be penalized. The Family Movie Act provision, championed by US Representative Lamar Smith (Rep., Texas), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee's Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee, provided an exemption from copyright and trademark law for skipping and muting content in a motion picture at the direction of a viewer, or the use of technology to accomplish the same result. The debate over censorship vs. artistic freedom intensified. The Hollywood film industry, film studios, and the Directors Guild want piracy protection, but say that "private content filtering" -- editing out foul language and objectionable scenes -- is unabashed censorship.
|
2005
|
The popularity of the new DVD format (and the start of a new optical disc format called Blu-Ray) doomed the once-ubiquitous VHS videotape cassette format. By the end of 2005, DVD sales were more than $22 billion and VHS was slumping badly but still able to pull in $1.5 billion. At the same time, JVC, the company that introduced the Video Home System (VHS) format to the US in 1977, announced that it would no longer make stand-alone videocassette recorders, further making it a "dead technology." In early 2006, the last major Hollywood motion picture to be released in the once-ubiquitous VHS videotape cassette format was David Cronenberg's A History of Violence (2005).
|
2005
|
The last feature-length Star Wars film in the franchise, Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, was released, and eventually made approximately $380 million. Its four-day opening take was a record $158.4 million. It was the first of the films to receive a PG-13 rating, and was considered too grim, dark, and intense for young fans. Filmmaker George Lucas was criticized for merchandising toys and other related products to younger consumers, while denying them the ability to see the film. The first five Star Wars films made a staggering $9 billion in merchandise sales -- triple the franchise's box-office sales (of $3.4 billion). Regarding Episodes I-III, critics denounced the Jar Jar Binks digital character and the poor acting, but the films were universally praised for their digital film-making and special effects.
|
2005
|
Summer box-office was grim for Hollywood - the lowest since 2001, and overall ticket sales (the average ticket price was estimated to be $6.40) and attendance totals were both down from the previous year. Many factors were blamed: the rise in home theater sales, better interactive video games, increasing gas-pump prices, a greater decrease in time between a film's theatrical release and the sale of the DVD version, the increase in bootleg DVDs and illegally-downloaded copies, greater competition from other forms of leisure entertainment, etc. It was suggested that the industry make better films, provide discounted tickets, make cheaper films (i.e., The March of the Penguins (2005) cost $8 million to make and earned almost $78 million - the highest-grossing nature documentary, the second-highest gross for a non-IMAX documentary), and eliminate various annoyances in movie theatres (i.e., commercials, use of cellphones, sticky environments, etc.).
|
2005
|
Michael Eisner's 21-year reign as Disney's CEO came to an end, as he was replaced by company president Robert Iger. Part of the reason for his step-down was due to controversy over his mis-steps in the last few years, including public feuds with other Disney executives or board members, low ratings for ABC-TV, bad decision making, poor box-office results, and other theme park-related failings.
|
2005
|
More evidence surfaced that Hollywood and the computer/video games industry were moving closer together. Steven Spielberg, a gamer himself, agreed to develop (and executive produce) three original games for Electronic Arts (Los Angeles branch). Computer games already were showing comparable income to the movie industry, i.e., the game Halo 2 for the XBox console system sold 2.4 million units in its first 24 hours of sales and made $125 million in gross receipts - in addition, Microsoft was in negotiations with Universal and Fox to turn the game into a movie.
|
2005
|
DreamWorks' and Rob Marshall's Memoirs of a Geisha (adapted from a novel by Arthur Golden), a film set in 1930s and 1940s Japan, was the first big-budget Hollywood film with Asian actors in every leading role. However, the film-makers received criticism regarding the casting decisions, since three of the major actresses were not Japanese but Chinese (and Malaysian). The producers and director argued in response that the casting took into account star power, acting ability, and physical traits - and the ability to speak English.
|
2005
|
Viacom's Paramount Pictures acquired the 11-year-old DreamWorks studio (founded in 1994 by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen) for approximately $1.6 billion. The stand-alone studio's demise marked the end of a Hollywood era, although it had reached a creative peak in 1998-2001 when its most popular and critically-successful films were released, including Saving Private Ryan (1998), American Beauty (1999), Gladiator (2000), A Beautiful Mind (2001) - and Shrek (2001) - there were three consecutive Best Picture winners beginning in 1999.
|
2005
|
The year ended with studio executives worried about the overall slump in the industry, despite some bright spots throughout the year -- every Hollywood studio could claim at least one $100 million picture. Revenues were down over 5% from the previous year (the largest year-to-year decline since 1985), and attendance dropped more than 7% (the lowest figure since 1997). And it was the first year in almost a decade in which only 17 films made over $100 million. Weekend box-office gross results beginning in late February slid for a record 19 weeks in a row, when compared to the corresponding period in 2004.
|
2005
|
Wedding Crashers, which earned over $209 million, surpassed There's Something About Mary (1998) as the top R-rated comedy in two decades. However, 2005 was predominantly characterized by PG-13 films, which placed 14 of their type in the top 25 moneymakers. PG-13 films accounted for 85% of movie theatre attendance in 2005. There were only two G-rated films and three R-rated films in the top 25 of 2005. The number of PG-13 films has outnumbered the number of PG films ever since the mid-1990s. Many of these PG-13 films would have been rated R in as little as five years earlier, due to what has been termed 'ratings creep'.
|
2005
|
Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005), costing $207 million in production costs, surpassed the $200 million mark (not adjusted for inflation) set by Titanic (1997), and also reached by Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 (2004).
|
2005
|
The remake of the classic and tragic beauty-and-the-beast love story of the 1933 King Kong film featured a computer-generated Kong. It was remarkable for having the largest number of special/visual effects shots in a single film, surpassing the previous records set by Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), and Jackson's own trilogy of The Lord of the Rings films. The more than 3,200 final shots in the film were culled from 3 million feet of live-action footage and 2,510 visual effects shots.
|
2005
|
In the fall, there were three mega-blockbusters that rescued Hollywood from a dismal financial year: they were Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ($290 million), The Chronicles of Narnia ($292 million), and King Kong ($218 million).
|
2005
|
There was a significant commercial trend in the film industry to release 'unrated' versions of R-rated and PG 13-rated films on DVD and videocassette, often with additional racy content that would have undoubtedly changed the original MPAA ratings of these films.
|
2005
|
Director/actor George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck, was released. It was a B/W biopic about legendary radio and CBS television news reporter Edward R. Murrow, focusing on his challenging attack in the mid 50s on red-baiting Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and McCarthyism.
|
2005
|
Independent films made outside the Hollywood system faced an uphill battle this year. This was the first year since 1995 that every $100 million hit came from a major studio.
|
2005
|
Movie mogul brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein ceased being co-chief executives at the Disney-owned film production company Miramax, in September of 2005. [In 1993, Disney acquired Miramax for about $80 million - a studio known for creative and independent film making and production. Miramax was responsible for some of the most successful films after the merger, including Chicago (2002), Pulp Fiction (1994), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Good Will Hunting (1998), The English Patient (1996) and Cold Mountain (2003).] The two Weinsteins, who founded the hugely successful firm 25 years earlier in 1979, would remain as co-chairmen of Miramax and continue to make films for Disney through their new film production company, The Weinstein Co. The Miramax name remained with the film studio owned by Disney.
|
2005
|
The trend of developing a name-blend for a celebrity super-couple continued with the prominent media and tabloid obsession over Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, dubbed "Brangelina." Their secret real-life pairing was rumored when they co-starred together in the action film Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), leading afterwards to Pitt's separation and divorce from Jennifer Aniston in 2005 after five years of marriage.
|
2005
|
The world record for the longest on-screen kiss, with an uninterrupted kiss, was surpassed in the film Kids in America. At the beginning of the end credits, film-obsessed student Holden Donovan (Gregory Smith) told his girlfriend Charlotte Pratt (Stephanie Sherrin) that he wanted to recreate the 3-minute and 5-second screen kiss from the film You're in the Army Now (1941) between Jane Wyman and Regis Toomey, the previous record-holder. Charlotte responded positively to meet his "challenge" and "rewrite a little bit of film history" - she removed Holden's glasses and began the 6-minute kiss with the command: "ACTION," to the tune of Brother Love's "Summertime."
|
2005
|
Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005) was his first theatrical piece adapted for the big screen. His enormously-successful African-American gospel stage plays had toured regularly (from 2000-2004), playing to the interests and concerns of his largely black, grass-roots middle-class audiences, by mixing Christian values into crowd-pleasing, mass-appeal comedies. Typical of his filmed works, it schizophrenically showcased incongruous genres in haphazard, zany fashion -- including slapstick comedy, cheap sit-com-like soap opera, serious drama, mean-spirited farce, sappy romance, God-talk, violence, and more. In this film, Perry served as its writer, producer, composer, and triple-role actor -- most notably as Madea, a gun-toting, tough-talking Southern granny-matriarch (Perry in drag in a house-dress, padded fat suit with balloon-breasts, and cheap gray-haired wig). The popular and brash character resurfaced in the next year's Madea's Family Reunion (2006) and other future films.
|
2005
|
Horror films became one of the most lucrative genre franchises, due to the fact that they could be cheaply made, and were capable of attracting large audiences. For example, Saw (2004), Hostel (2005), and Saw II (2005) did tremendous box-office business, compared to their budget costs. A so-called "torture-porn" trend was inaugurated by these films and others, including Wolf Creek (2005, Aust.), The Devil's Rejects (2005), and Turistas (2006). Horror franchises of this kind could be extended almost indefinitely, i.e., six Saw films (from 2004-2009), two Hostel films (2005 and 2007), four Scary Movie spoofs (from 2000-2006), etc.
|
Share with your friends: |
