Horton Hears a Who! | |
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Directed by | |
Screenplay by | Cinco Paul Ken Daurio |
Based on | Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Edited by | Tim Nordquist |
Music by | John Powell |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | 20th Century Fox [1] |
Release date |
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Running time | 86 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $85 million [3] |
Box office | $298.6 million [3] |
Horton Hears a Who! (also known as Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! or simply Horton) is a 2008 American animated adventure comedy film [1] based on the 1954 book of the same name by Dr. Seuss, produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film was directed by Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino (in their feature directorial debuts), from a screenplay written by the writing team of Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio. It stars the voices of Jim Carrey and Steve Carell as Horton the Elephant and Mayor Ned McDodd, respectively, alongside Carol Burnett, Will Arnett, Seth Rogen, Dan Fogler, Isla Fisher, Jonah Hill, and Amy Poehler. [4] Recurring Blue Sky collaborator John Powell composed the film's musical score. It is the fourth screen adaptation of the book following the 1970 Chuck Jones television special, the 1987 Soviet animated short, and the 1992 Russian animated short. [5] [6]
The film was released theatrically on March 14, 2008, to generally positive reviews, and grossed $298 million on a budget of $85 million. Horton Hears a Who! was the third Dr. Seuss feature film adaptation, [7] the first adaptation to be fully animated using CGI technology, [8] the first and so far only theatrical film adaptation to receive positive reviews, and the second Dr. Seuss film starring Jim Carrey after How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000). [8]
In the Jungle of Nool, Horton the Elephant, the jungle's eccentric nature teacher, hears a tiny yelp coming from a floating dust speck and gives chase to it before placing it on top of a flower. Horton finds out the speck harbors the city of Whoville and its inhabitants, the Whos, led by Mayor Ned McDodd, whose family includes his wife, Sally; 96 daughters whose names all begin with the letter H; and one teenage son named JoJo. Despite being the oldest child and next in line for the mayoral position, JoJo does not want to be the next mayor, and he does not speak due to his fear of disappointing his father.
Once Horton begins carrying the speck with him, the city starts experiencing strange phenomena (earthquakes and changes in the weather), and the mayor finds his attempts to caution Whoville challenged by the town council, led by the opportunistic yet condescending chairman.
After he makes contact with Horton, the mayor finds out from Dr. Mary Lou LaRue that Whoville will be destroyed if Horton does not find a "safer, more stable home". With the help of his best friend Morton the mouse, Horton decides to place the speck atop Mt. Nool, the safest place in the jungle. The head of the jungle, the Sour Kangaroo, who refuses to believe that the Whos exist, demands numerous times that Horton give up the speck for overshadowing her authority, but Horton refuses. Also taking force toward Horton are the Wickersham Brothers, a group of monkeys who like to cause havoc around the jungle. Eventually, the Kangaroo enlists a sinister but idiotic vulture named Vlad Vladikoff to get rid of the speck by force. He initially only agrees to do it in exchange for the Kangaroo's son Rudy, but when she threatens to hire the Wickersham Brothers to do it, he eventually decides to do it for free.
After a few failed attempts, Vlad manages to steal the flower away from Horton and drops it into a massive field of identical pink flowers causing an apocalyptic tremor in Whoville. After unsuccessfully picking 2,999,999 flowers, Horton eventually recovers the flower (exactly the 3,000,000th flower), also revealing himself to the rest of Whoville. The Kangaroo eventually finds out that Horton still has the speck, fires Vlad, and rallies the jungle community into arresting Horton, preying on their fears that their own children will become chaotic delinquents under his influence.
Upon cornering him, the Kangaroo offers Horton a final chance to renounce Whoville's existence. Horton refuses, and despite the heartfelt speech that he gives, the Kangaroo orders the animals to rope and cage him, and to have the speck and Whoville destroyed in a pot of beezlenut oil. The Mayor enlists all of his people to make noise, so that all the animals will find out they're really there, assisted by JoJo's "Symphonophone", an invention which creates a huge musical contribution and reveals that JoJo's "true" passion is music, but still fails to penetrate the surface of the speck.
The Kangaroo snatches the flower from the captured Horton and prepares to drop it into the pot. Meanwhile, JoJo grabs the horn used to project Horton's voice, runs up the highest tower, and screams his first word, breaking through the sound barrier just seconds before the speck hits the oil. Rudy grabs the flower and proclaims he hears it, and the other animals of Nool notice that they hear it too. Despite his mother's objections, Rudy returns the flower to the released Horton, while the animals, realizing the truth about the Whos' existence, turn on the Kangaroo for deceiving them. While being praised for his integrity by his neighbors, Horton forgives the devastated and regretful Kangaroo, who befriends him with a makeshift umbrella for Whoville. The film ends with the Whos and the animals of Nool gathering to recite the chorus from "Can't Fight This Feeling" by REO Speedwagon, and it is revealed that the Jungle of Nool (and Earth as a whole) is just one speck, like Whoville, among numerous others, floating in space.
Other animals that appear as residents of the Jungle of Nool are Deer Whose-horns-are-connected-from-one-to-the-other from If I Ran the Zoo , [12] Zatz-its from On Beyond Zebra! , [13] Long-Legger Kwongs and Ruffle-Necked Sala-ma-gooxes from Scrambled Eggs Super! , [14] other yaks (which resembled the Yawning Yellow Yak from Dr. Seuss's ABC ), [15] other bears (which like Tommy and his father Willie and unlike most bears (especially ones from other Dr. Seuss's stories) have muzzles which shape like and resemble those of a bovidae and hippo snouts and have stripes), Zongs (anteater-like creatures which resemble walking vacuum cleaners) from Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! , [16] and Giant Lizards (lizard-like creatures, which have spines and, unlike regular lizards, have fur, and tufts on their tails, which possibly resemble the Giant Lizard from Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! ), [17] which were designed by Jason Sadler, a former animator, storyboard artist, designer, and voice actor on Dick Figures , who also works for Blue Sky Studios as a character designer, and was also famous for Happy Tree Friends as an animator, storyboard artist, director, and writer. He would later work as a character designer for Rio . [18]
After the critical and commercial failure of the 2003 film The Cat in the Hat , Dr. Seuss' widow, Audrey Geisel, was so dissatisfied with the film that she then decided not to allow any more live-action feature films based on his work. [19] In March 2005, as Blue Sky Studios was completing Robots , the studio and 20th Century Fox Animation president Chris Meledandri approached Geisel about getting the adaptation rights for Horton Hears a Who! . [20] [2] The art director for Robots, Steve Martino, along with story consultant and additional scene director Jimmy Hayward, [21] created a model of protagonist Horton and some animation tests to showcase their design ideas to Geisel, [20] who eventually agreed on "a seven-figure deal" for both the book and its predecessor Horton Hatches the Egg . Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio were then hired to write the script, [22] to be directed by Hayward and Martino with a set release date of early 2008. [21]
Geisel was credited as an executive producer and watched production up close, [20] and also gave the directors full access to her late husband's archives, including his original sketches, 3-D sculptures, work done for the film The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (1953), and even memos Dr. Seuss traded with Chuck Jones during the production of the Grinch TV special. [23] For references in doing the character animation, along with footage of the voice actors performing their lines, the Blue Sky animators recorded themselves performing the script in an "acting room" to see what of their body language could translate well into the film. [24]
To make Horton different from the mammoths Blue Sky created for the Ice Age series, he would at times stand and walk upright and bipedally on two legs in a way that made him look like "a fat man in an elephant suit". The directors noticed Horton's design in the book varied according to his emotion, and the 3D wireframe tried to allow for the same effects, with a bigger mouth to allow for wider facial expressions like those of Jim Carrey. [25]
Horton Hears a Who! (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) | |
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Film score by | |
Released | March 25, 2008 |
Recorded | 2007–2008 |
Genre | Soundtrack |
Length | 59:56 |
Label | Varèse Sarabande |
Producer | John Powell |
The original score for the film's soundtrack album was composed by John Powell. A soundtrack consisting of the film's score was released on March 25, 2008, by Varèse Sarabande. [26] [27] Near the end of the picture, the cast comes together and sings the song "Can't Fight This Feeling" by REO Speedwagon. [28]
Other songs featured in the film include: [29]
Title | Performer |
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"Can't Fight This Feeling" | Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Amy Poehler, Carol Burnett, Dan Fogler, Seth Rogen, Will Arnett and Fletcher Sheridan |
"Quickie" | Thomas Foyer |
"Swingville Sashay" | Muff & Rezz |
"Água Melão" | Gilberto Cândido |
"The Blue Danube" | Johann Strauss II |
On Rotten Tomatoes 79% of 136 reviews were positive, with an average rating of 7/10. The site's consensus reads, "Horton Hears A Who! is both whimsical and heartwarming, and is the rare Dr. Seuss adaptation that stays true to the spirit of the source material." [30] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 71 out of 100 based on 31 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [31] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film version an "A−" grade on an "A+" to "F" scale. [32]
Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter called it "a delight, brimming with colorful, elastic characters and bountiful wit." [33]
John Anderson of Variety wrote: "The real stars of the movie are the animators, who imbue even the overgrowth in Horton's jungle with a certain floppy Seuss-ishness." [34]
Horton Hears a Who! grossed a total of $298.5 million on an $85 million budget. $154.5 million came from the United States and Canada, and $145 million from other territories. [3] [35]
In its opening weekend, the film grossed $45 million in 3,954 theaters, averaging $11,384 per theater in the United States and Canada, and ranking #1 at the box office. [36] The film also had the strongest opening for a film starring Jim Carrey since Bruce Almighty , with the same applying to his costar in both films, Steve Carell. [32]
The film previously had the fourth-largest opening weekend in March, behind Ice Age , Ice Age: The Meltdown and 300 , and as of September 2012, it ranks on the 15th place. [37] In the United States and Canada, Horton Hears a Who! was also the #1 film its second weekend of release, grossing $25 million over the Easter frame, in 3,961 theaters and averaging $6,208 per venue. It dropped to #2 in its third weekend grossing $17.8 million in 3,826 theaters and averaging $4,637 per venue. At the international box office it remained at #1 in its third week. [38]
Horton Hears a Who!, like other Dr. Seuss creations, contains layered subtexts and messages. A major theme regards learning about universal values between vastly different places and people, as shown by the quote "A person's a person, no matter how small". This is employed on many levels: primarily with Horton and the Mayor of Whoville making contact and championing each other to the point where everyone around them eventually learns the truth about the speck that Whoville resides on; but also with the Mayor and Sour Kangaroo's relationships with their respective sons, Horton and the Mayor being challenged by Sour Kangaroo and the chairman, the fickle herd mentality of the jungle community (save Horton's students and Morton) and Horton still forgiving Sour Kangaroo, and the ending shot of all of the worlds being specks in space. [39]
Award | Category | Nominee | Result |
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Annie Awards [40] | Outstanding Animated Effects | Alen Lai | Nominated |
Outstanding Character Animation in a Feature Production | Jeff Gabor | Nominated | |
Outstanding Character Design in an Animated Feature Production | Sang Jun Lee | Nominated | |
Outstanding Music in an Animated Feature Production | John Powell | Nominated | |
Outstanding Writing in an Animated Feature Production | Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio | Nominated | |
ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards [41] | Top Box Office Films | John Powell for Bolt , Hancock , Horton Hears a Who! and Jumper | Won |
Golden Reel Award [42] | Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects, Foley, Music, Dialogue and ADR Animation in a Feature Film | Randy Thom, Dennis Leonard, Jonathan Null, Sue Fox, Thomas A. Carlson, Steve Slanec, Colette D. Dahanne, Pete Horner, Kyrsten Mate, Mac Smith, Jeremy Bowker, Andrea Gard, Ronni Brown, Ellen Heuer, Dennie Thorpe, Jana Vance | Nominated |
Golden Trailer Awards [43] | Best Animation/Family TV Spot for "Whomongous" | Horton Hears a Who! | Nominated |
Houston Film Critics Society [44] | Best Animated Feature Film | Horton Hears a Who! | Nominated |
Kids' Choice Awards [45] | Favorite Voice From an Animated Movie | Jim Carrey | Nominated |
IFMCA Awards [46] | Best Original Score for an Animated Feature Film | John Powell | Nominated |
Online Film Critics Society [47] | Best Animated Feature | Horton Hears a Who! | Nominated |
Satellite Awards [48] | Best Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed Media | Horton Hears a Who! | Nominated |
Best Original Score | John Powell | Nominated | |
Saturn Awards [49] | Best Animated Film | Horton Hears a Who! | Nominated |
Young Artist Award [50] | Best Performance in a Voice-Over Role - Young Actress | | Selena Gomez | Nominated |
Shelby Adamowsky | Nominated | ||
Joey King | Nominated |
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! was released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 9, 2008. Three versions of the DVD are available: a single-disc edition, a 2-disc special edition, and a gift set packaged with a Horton plush. All three versions included the Ice Age short film Surviving Sid . [51]
In the United States, the film earned $77,630,768 from DVD sales and $180,434 from Blu-ray sales for a total of $77,811,202 in video sales. [35]
Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American children's author and cartoonist. He is known for his work writing and illustrating more than 60 books under the pen name Dr. Seuss. His work includes many of the most popular children's books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death.
Seussical, sometimes Seussical the Musical, is a musical comedy by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, based on the many children's stories of Dr. Seuss, with most of its plot being based on Horton Hears a Who!, Gertrude McFuzz, and Horton Hatches the Egg while incorporating many other stories. The musical's name is a portmanteau of "Seuss" and the word "musical". Following its Broadway debut in 2000, the show was widely panned by critics, and closed in 2001 with huge financial losses. It has spawned two US national tours and a West End production, and has become a frequent production for schools and regional theaters.
Horton Hears a Who! is a children's book written and illustrated by Theodor Seuss Geisel under the pen name Dr. Seuss. It was published in 1954 by Random House. This book tells the story of Horton the Elephant and his adventures saving Whoville, a tiny planet located on a speck of dust, from the animals who mock him. These animals attempt to steal and burn the speck of dust, so Horton goes to great lengths to save Whoville from being incinerated.
The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss is an American children's puppet television series based on characters created by Dr. Seuss, produced by The Jim Henson Company. It aired from October 13, 1996, to May 15, 1998, on Nickelodeon. It combines live puppets with digitally animated backgrounds, and in its first season, refashioning characters and themes from the original Dr. Seuss books into new stories that often retained much of the flavor of Dr. Seuss' own works.
The Grinch is a character created by children's author and cartoonist Dr. Seuss. He is best known as the main character of the 1957 children's book How the Grinch Stole Christmas! He has been portrayed and voiced by many actors, including Boris Karloff, Hans Conried, Bob Holt, Walter Matthau, Anthony Asbury, Jim Carrey, Rik Mayall, Benedict Cumberbatch, Matthew Morrison, David Howard Thornton, and James Austin Johnson.
On Beyond Zebra! is a 1955 illustrated children's book by Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. In this take on the genre of alphabet book, Seuss presents, instead of the twenty-six letters of the conventional English alphabet, twenty additional letters that purportedly follow them.
If I Ran the Zoo is a children's book written by Dr. Seuss in 1950.
Scrambled Eggs Super! is a 1953 children's book written and illustrated by American children's author Dr. Seuss. The story is told from the point of view of a boy named Peter T. Hooper, who makes scrambled eggs prepared from eggs belonging to various exotic birds.
Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! is a children's book written and illustrated by Theodor Geisel under the pen name Dr. Seuss and published by Random House on August 21, 1975. The book is about the many amazing 'thinks' one can think and the endless possibilities and dreams that imagination can create. The book's front cover depicts forty-seven unknown bird-like creatures walking around on a cyan circle.
Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas is a 2000 American Christmas fantasy comedy film directed by Ron Howard, who also produced with Brian Grazer, from a screenplay written by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman. Based on Dr. Seuss's 1957 children's book of the same name, this marked the first Dr. Seuss book to be adapted into a full-length feature film. It is also one of only two live-action adaptations; the other being The Cat in the Hat (2003). It is the second adaptation of the book, following the 1966 animated TV special.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is a 1966 American animated television special, directed and co-produced by Chuck Jones. Based on the 1957 children's book of the same name by Dr. Seuss, the special features the voice of Boris Karloff as the Grinch. It tells the story of the Grinch, who tries to ruin Christmas for the townsfolk of Whoville below his mountain hideaway.
Horton the Elephant is a fictional character from the 1940 book Horton Hatches the Egg and 1954 book Horton Hears a Who!, both by Dr. Seuss. He is also featured in the short story Horton and the Kwuggerbug, first published for Redbook in 1951 and later rediscovered by Charles D. Cohen and published in the 2014 anthology Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories. In all books and other media, Horton is characterized as a kind, sweet-natured, and naïve elephant who manages to overcome hardships.
James Hayward is a Canadian film director, screenwriter and animator. He has written screenplays for Columbia, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Brothers.
Horton Hears a Who! is a 1970 American animated television special based on the 1954 Dr. Seuss book of the same name, Horton Hears a Who! The special was produced and directed by Chuck Jones who previously produced the Seuss special How the Grinch Stole Christmas! for MGM Television and first broadcast March 19, 1970 on CBS. The special contains songs with lyrics by Seuss and music by Eugene Poddany, who previously wrote songs for Seuss' book, The Cat in the Hat Song Book.
Whoville, sometimes written as Who-ville, is a fictional town created by author Theodor Seuss Geisel, under the name Dr. Seuss. Whoville appeared in the 1954 book Horton Hears a Who! and the 1957 book How the Grinch Stole Christmas! with significant differences between the two renditions. Its denizens go by the collective name Whos, as in a plural form of the pronoun who.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is a Christmas children's book by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel written in rhymed verse with illustrations by the author. It follows the Grinch, a cranky, solitary creature who attempts to thwart the public's Christmas plans by stealing Christmas gifts and decorations from the homes of the nearby town of Whoville on Christmas Eve. Miraculously, the Grinch realizes that Christmas is not all about money and presents.
The Lorax is a 2012 American animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment, and distributed by Universal. The film is the second screen adaptation of Dr. Seuss' 1971 children's book The Lorax following the 1972 animated television special. Directed by Chris Renaud, co-directed by Kyle Balda, produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy and written by the writing team of Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, it stars the voices of Danny DeVito, Ed Helms, Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, Rob Riggle, Jenny Slate and Betty White.
Horton Hatches the Egg is a 1942 American animated short film by Leon Schlesinger Productions, based on the 1940 book by Dr. Seuss, and released as part of Warner Bros.' Merrie Melodies series. The short was directed by Bob Clampett and was the first film adaptation based on a Seuss book.
Stephen Michael Martino is an American designer and film director. He is best known for directing the Blue Sky Studios films Horton Hears a Who! (2008), Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012), and The Peanuts Movie (2015).
The Grinch, also known as Dr. Seuss' The Grinch, is a 2018 American animated Christmas comedy film produced by Universal Pictures and Illumination, and distributed by Universal. The third screen adaptation of Dr. Seuss' 1957 book How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, following the 1966 television special and the 2000 live-action feature-length film, it is Illumination's second Dr. Seuss film adaptation, after The Lorax in 2012. The plot follows the Grinch, who plans to stop Whoville's Christmas celebration by stealing all the town's decorations and gifts, with his pet dog Max.