Pixels (2010 film)

Last updated
Pixels
Pixels short film.jpg
Directed byPatrick Jean
Written byPatrick Jean
Produced byJohnny Alves
Benjamin Dara
CinematographyMatias Boucard
Production
company
One More Production
Release date
  • 8 April 2010 (2010-04-08)
Running time
2 minutes
CountryFrance

Pixels is a 2010 French animated short film written and directed by Patrick Jean. It is about an invasion of New York City by classic 8-bit video game characters, such as those from Space Invaders , Pac-Man and others.

Contents

The film won "the Annecy Cristal" (le Cristal d'Annecy) for Best Short Film at the 2011 Annecy International Animated Film Festival. [1]

Plot

On a Brooklyn sidewalk, a man walks over to a trash can, leaves a 1980s-era television by it, and walks away. After a few seconds, the television suddenly reactivates and an 8-bit picture of a bomb appears. When its fuse runs out, the television's screen shatters and releases a cloud of pixels (illustrated as voxels because of the three-dimensionality of the scene). They fly over to Manhattan and form into various characters from 1980s arcade video games.

Space Invaders start to shoot downwards; on contact, the projectiles cause a delivery truck and two taxis to degenerate into pixels. A cloud of pixels then flies down a subway station, eventually forming into Pac-Man, which eats subway trains and stations as it travels through the tunnels. Its progress is shown on the subway status display, similar to the cleared-away dots on the original game screen. Giant recreations of tetrominoes from Tetris then fall from the sky and match up with floors of skyscrapers. One building gets a "Tetris", eliminating several mid-level floors as its top crashes onto the remainder of the building. Recreations of the Vaus from Arkanoid appear and destroy one of the piers of the Brooklyn Bridge, resulting in the structure collapsing. Donkey Kong then throws a barrel from the Empire State Building which knocks down a traffic light and damaging a fire hydrant, the latter of which sprays out suddenly pixelated water, while Frogger is seen trying to cross traffic in the form of pixelated cars.

Finally, a giant pixelated bomb is shown. When it explodes, everything around it becomes pixelated. The effect envelopes the entire cityscape and eventually the whole of the Earth, transfiguring it into a single giant pixel, which continues rotating as it drifts away. The end credits are shown as a high score list.

Feature film adaptation

Columbia Pictures and Happy Madison Productions developed a film loosely based on this short, [2] in which the attacking video games behave more like an alien invasion rather than a natural disaster. Tim Herlihy and Tim Dowling wrote the script, [3] [4] which Chris Columbus directed. [5] Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Josh Gad, Peter Dinklage, Brian Cox, Ashley Benson and Michelle Monaghan star in the film. [6] [7] [8]

The feature film shot principal photography in Toronto, Canada in June 2014 using downtown streets decorated to resemble Washington DC. [9] It was released on July 24, 2015.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Sandler</span> American actor and comedian (born 1966)

Adam Richard Sandler is an American actor and comedian. Primarily a comedic leading actor in films, his accolades include nominations for three Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2023, Sandler was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

<i>Happy Gilmore</i> 1996 film by Dennis Dugan

Happy Gilmore is a 1996 American sports comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan, produced by Robert Simonds, and starring Adam Sandler in the title role, Christopher McDonald, Julie Bowen, and Carl Weathers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Dinklage</span> American actor (born 1969)

Peter Hayden Dinklage is an American actor. Portraying Tyrion Lannister on the HBO television series Game of Thrones (2011–2019), Dinklage won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series a record four times. He also received a Golden Globe Award in 2011 and a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2020 for the role. Dinklage has a common form of dwarfism known as achondroplasia, and stands 4 ft 5 in (1.35 m) tall. He has used his celebrity status to raise social awareness of dwarfism.

Happy Madison Productions, Inc. is an American film and television production company founded in 1999 by Adam Sandler, which is best known for its comedy films. Happy Madison takes its name from the films Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison, written by Sandler and Tim Herlihy, and distributed by Universal Pictures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drew Goddard</span> American screenwriter and director

Andrew Brion Hogan Goddard is an American screenwriter, director, and producer most closely associated with the horror genre. He began his career writing episodes for the television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alias, and Lost. After moving into screenwriting in film, he wrote Cloverfield (2008), World War Z (2013), and The Martian (2015), the latter earning him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2011, he made his directorial debut with The Cabin in the Woods.

Timothy Patrick Herlihy is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and playwright.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josh Gad</span> American actor (born 1981)

Joshua Ilan Gad is an American actor. He is known for voicing Olaf in the Frozen franchise and playing Elder Arnold Cunningham in the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon. For his role as Olaf, Gad won two Annie Awards, and for his work in The Book of Mormon, he co-won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical, both shared with Andrew Rannells as one of the two leading artists.

<i>Just Go with It</i> 2011 romantic comedy movie directed by Dennis Dugan

Just Go With It is a 2011 American romantic comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan, written by Allan Loeb and Timothy Dowling, and produced by Adam Sandler, Jack Giarraputo, and Heather Parry. It is a remake of the 1969 film Cactus Flower, and stars Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. It tells the story of a plastic surgeon who enlists his assistant to help him woo a sixth-grade math teacher.

<i>Search Party</i> (film) 2014 American film

Search Party is a 2014 American comedy film directed by Scot Armstrong, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mike Gagerman and Andrew Waller, based on a story by Gagerman and Waller. The film stars T.J. Miller, Adam Pally, Thomas Middleditch, Alison Brie, Shannon Woodward, and Krysten Ritter.

<i>Hotel Transylvania 2</i> 2015 American film by Genndy Tartakovsky

Hotel Transylvania 2 is a 2015 American animated monster comedy film produced by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation in association with LStar Capital, animated by Sony Pictures Imageworks, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky and written by Robert Smigel and Adam Sandler, it is the second installment in the Hotel Transylvania franchise, serving as the sequel to Hotel Transylvania (2012).

<i>Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2</i> 2015 film by Andy Fickman

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is a 2015 American action comedy film directed by Andy Fickman and written by Kevin James and Nick Bakay. It is the sequel to 2009's Paul Blart: Mall Cop. It features James, Shirley Knight, Jayma Mays and Raini Rodriguez reprising their roles with Gary Valentine playing a different character and Neal McDonough joining the cast. The film follows mall security guard Paul Blart (James), who is invited to a security officers' convention in Las Vegas and must stop a heist at the Wynn Las Vegas hotel.

<i>Pixels</i> (2015 film) 2015 film by Chris Columbus

Pixels is a 2015 science fiction action comedy film directed by Chris Columbus and written by Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling and based on a story by the former. Loosely adapted from the 2010 short film Pixels by Patrick Jean, the film stars Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Michelle Monaghan, Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad and Brian Cox. Combining animated video game characters and visual effects, the film involves an alien force misinterpreting video feeds of classic arcade games as a declaration of war, to which they respond by attacking Earth with technological recreations of icons from the games. The President of the United States assembles a team of former arcade champions to lead the planet's defense.

<i>The Night Before</i> (2015 film) 2015 American film

The Night Before is a 2015 American Christmas comedy stoner film directed by Jonathan Levine and written by Levine, Evan Goldberg, Kyle Hunter, and Ariel Shaffir. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, and Anthony Mackie as three childhood friends who annually reunite on Christmas Eve in search of the best party in New York City. Lizzy Caplan, Jillian Bell, Mindy Kaling, and Michael Shannon also star.

<i>Money Monster</i> 2016 film by Jodie Foster

Money Monster is a 2016 American crime thriller film directed by Jodie Foster, with a screenplay by Jamie Linden, Alan Di Fiore, and Jim Kouf from a story by Di Fiore and Kouf. The film stars George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O'Connell, Dominic West, Caitríona Balfe, and Giancarlo Esposito. It follows financial television host Lee Gates and his producer Patty Fenn, as they are put in an extreme situation when an irate investor takes them and their crew as hostage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlas Entertainment</span> American film financing and producing company

Atlas Entertainment, LLC is an American film financing and production company, started by Charles Roven, Bob Cavallo and Dawn Steel in 1994. Its logo features the Greek Titan Atlas, which was the basis for the company's name.

<i>The Ridiculous 6</i> 2015 film directed by Frank Coraci

The Ridiculous 6 is a 2015 American Western action comedy film directed by Frank Coraci and written by Tim Herlihy and Adam Sandler, and starring Sandler, Terry Crews, Jorge Garcia, Taylor Lautner, Rob Schneider, and Luke Wilson. As Happy Madison Productions' first Western film, the plot follows six men who discover that they share the same bank-robbing father and thereafter set out to reunite with him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andy Muschietti</span> Argentine filmmaker (born 1973)

Andrés Walter Muschietti is an Argentine film director and screenwriter who had his breakthrough with the 2013 film Mama. He gained further recognition for directing both films in the It film series, the 2017 film adaptation of the Stephen King novel and its 2019 sequel, It Chapter Two. In 2023, he directed the DC Extended Universe film The Flash.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Travis Tope</span> American actor (born 1991)

Travis Tope is an American film and television actor, known for playing Chris Truby in the film Men, Women and Children, Nick Strain in The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Joe Harper/Tommy Darmody in the series Boardwalk Empire, and Kevin McClain in the Netflix mockumentary American Vandal.

James Bloor is an English writer and actor.

References

  1. ↑ Hopewell, John; Keslassy, Elsa (2011-06-11). "'Rabbi's Cat' wins Annecy best feature". Variety . Retrieved 2011-06-12.
  2. ↑ Fleming, Mike Jr. (12 May 2010). "Sony, Happy Madison Playing With Viral Sensation 'Pixels'". Deadline Hollywood . Archived from the original on May 14, 2010. Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  3. ↑ Kit, Borys (10 November 2010). "Happy Madison Hires Writer for 'Pixels' Feature". hollywoodreporter.com. Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  4. ↑ Sneider, Jeff (16 July 2012). "Tim Dowling to rewrite vidgame-themed 'Pixels'". variety.com. Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  5. ↑ Sneider, Jeff (30 May 2013). "Chris Columbus in Talks to Direct 'Pixels' for Sandler and Sony". thewrap.com. Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  6. ↑ Sneider, Jeff (26 February 2014). "Adam Sandler to Star in Sony's Big-Budget Video Game Movie 'Pixels'". thewrap.com. Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  7. ↑ "Game of Thrones' Star Peter Dinklage Joins Cast of Adam Sandler's 'Pixels'". variety.com. 28 March 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
  8. ↑ Kit, Borys (4 April 2014). "Michelle Monaghan Joining Adam Sandler in 'Pixels'". hollywoodreporter.com. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
  9. ↑ Christine. "Pixels". Onlocationvacations.com. Retrieved 2014-06-04.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.