Pixels Uhd

[Margarita Lovvorn]

Pixelsis a 2015 science fiction comedy film[6] directed by Chris Columbus and written by Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling, based on a story penned by Herlihy.[5] Loosely adapted from the 2010 short film of the same name by Patrick Jean (who serves as an executive producer on the film), 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 race misinterpreting video feeds of classic arcade games as a declaration of war, to which they respond by attacking Earth with technological replicas of characters from the games. The President of the United States assembles a team of former arcade champions to lead the planet's defense.

Development on the film began in 2010 with Chris Columbus signing on to direct in 2013. Licensing for arcade game characters that appear in the film was obtained the following year. The filming began in Toronto on May 28, 2014, and was completed in three months. In post-production, visual effect techniques employed the use of voxels, a three-dimensional cube in 3D computer graphics, to replicate the low-resolution pixels of older arcade games on the screen.

At an arcade in 1982, Will Cooper watches his friend Sam Brenner seemingly lose a Donkey Kong championship game to Eddie "The Fireblaster" Plant. Videocassette footage of the event is included in a time capsule launched into space.

Will summons Sam and lieutenant colonel Violet van Patten to the White House. Seeing video footage of the attack and meeting with fellow gamer Ludlow "The Wonder Kid" Lamonsoff, Sam deduces the aliens have mistaken the videocassette as a declaration of war and are attacking Earth with arcade game icons. The aliens challenge Earth to a best-of-five battle, claiming Earth has already lost the first match. The next attack is on the Taj Mahal in the form of Arkanoid, but Sam and Will cannot persuade people and Earth loses the second match.

Sam and Ludlow train Navy SEALs to play the games while Violet develops effective energy weapons. The team heads to London, where the aliens attack Hyde Park in the form of Centipede. As the soldiers lose, Sam and Ludlow step in and win with their gaming skills. The aliens send a trophy in the form of the Duck Hunt dog.

Eddie is freed from prison to assist in New York City, where the team fights in Mini Coopers as ghosts against a giant Pac-Man. Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani tries to reason with Pac-Man but gets his hand bitten off. Sam tricks Pac-Man and wins the game with Q*Bert as a trophy, before the aliens announce there was cheating in the game meaning Earth forfeits the challenge. Violet's son Matty discovers that Eddie used a cheat code written on the inside of his glasses and that he had cheated in the same way in the Donkey Kong match as a child. Eddie flees and the aliens abduct Matty.

The aliens attack Washington, D.C. with an army of video game characters. One attacks Ludlow in the form of Lady Lisa, a character with whom he has a crush. Ludlow persuades her to side with him. A repentant Eddie returns to the fight. Sam, Violet, and Will are summoned to the alien mothership for a last chance to save Earth by facing their leader as Donkey Kong. The trio is placed on the starting level with Donkey Kong and the captives at the top level. Sam sees that the pattern of barrels and fireballs is random and loses hope until Matty reveals Eddie's cheating. Realizing that he is the world's best Donkey Kong player, Sam's spirit is restored and he defeats Donkey Kong. Lisa and the aliens leave Earth.

The team is hailed as heroes and Will negotiates a peace agreement with the aliens. Eddie apologizes to Sam for cheating and acknowledges him as the best Donkey Kong player. Ludlow is devastated that Lisa is gone, so Q*Bert transforms its likeness to Lisa. Sam and Violet start a romantic relationship while Eddie meets Serena Williams and Martha Stewart. The aliens restore everything on Earth, including Iwatani's hand. A year later, Lisa and Ludlow are married and had Q*Bert children.

Dan Aykroyd plays the master of ceremonies of the video game championship. Nick Swardson plays a bystander seen during the Pac-Man attack. Dan Patrick, Robert Smigel, and Steve Koren play reporters at the White House. Serena Williams and Martha Stewart have cameo roles as themselves. Matt Frewer reprises his role as the voice of Max Headroom, a role he made famous during the 1980s. Steve Wiebe, a previous Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. World Record holder, plays a military scientist. Denis Akiyama portrays Toru Iwatani, the creator of the Pac-Man franchise,[16] while the real Iwatani has a cameo role as a repairman at the arcade the Arcaders used to play at. Fiona Shaw plays the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.[17] Holly Beavon and Billy West provide additional character voices.[citation needed] Daryl Hall and John Oates, of the musical duo Hall & Oates, have a cameo during a broadcast interruption after Pac-Man's defeat.

The film is based on Patrick Jean's video-game-themed short film, Pixels.[18] In 2010, Adam Sandler hired Tim Herlihy to write the script,[19] a draft that Herlihy had said that everybody at the studio "hated". Eventually, Herlihy and Sandler came up with the concept of having Kevin James be the President of the United States and rewrote the film incorporating this element.[20] In July 2012, Tim Dowling was hired to rewrite the film. Seth Gordon was attached as executive producer and as a possible candidate to direct the film.[21] Chris Columbus became involved in the project in May 2013.[22] Columbus said he first met Sandler to discuss a possible remake of Hello Ghost, and as he left the meeting, the director was handed a script for Pixels. The script affected Columbus, who considered it "one of the most original ideas I had seen since the Amblin days" and a good opportunity to harken back to the 1980s comedies he worked on.[23] Characters from classic arcade games such as Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Frogger, Galaga, and Donkey Kong, among several others, were licensed for use in the film.[24]

There were originally plans to include a scene where the Great Wall of China is damaged, but the concept was removed from the script in hopes of improving the film's chances in the Chinese market.[25]

On February 26, 2014, it was announced that Sandler would play the lead role in the film, while James and Josh Gad were in early talks to join the cast.[7] On March 28, Peter Dinklage was also in final talks to join the film, playing the fourth and final male lead.[9] Jennifer Aniston was originally considered for the female lead, but declined due to scheduling conflicts.[26] On April 4, Michelle Monaghan joined the film to star as the female lead.[8] On June 11, Brian Cox joined the cast and plays military heavyweight Admiral Porter.[12] The part of "Lady Lisa", a beautiful warrior from the fictional 1980s video game Dojo Quest, was offered to Elisha Cuthbert, but she turned down the role,[27] which went to Ashley Benson.[14] On July 9, Jane Krakowski joined the cast as the First Lady.[13]

The film was greenlit on a production budget of $135 million, which Doug Belgrad negotiated down to $110 million.[28] On March 25, 2014, the Ontario Media Development Corporation confirmed that the film would be shot in Toronto from May 28 to September 9 at Pinewood Toronto Studios.[29][30]

Principal photography on the film commenced in Toronto on June 2, 2014, using downtown streets decorated to resemble New York City.[31] Given sequences such as the Pac-Man chase happened at night, often the filmmakers would close the streets off from traffic at 7 PM and redecorate them to resemble New York until it was dark enough, filming from 9:30 PM up to 5:30 AM.[32] On July 29, filming was taking place outside of Markham, Ontario.[33] Filming was also done in the Rouge Park area, and extras were dressing in costume at Markham's Rouge Valley Mennonite Church.[33] On August 4, actors Josh Gad, Peter Dinklage, and Ashley Benson were spotted in Toronto filming scenes for the film on Bay Street, which was transformed into a city block in Washington, D.C., and littered with wrecked vehicles and giant holes in the pavement.[34] The Ontario Government Buildings was doubled to transform into a federal office building in Washington. Actors were aiming at aliens, which could not be seen but were added later with computer-generated imagery.[34] On August 26, 2014, filming took place in Cobourg.[35] Filming was completed in three months, with 12 hours of shooting a day.[36]

Most of the visual effects for Pixels were handled by Digital Domain and Sony Pictures Imageworks, with nine other VFX companies playing supporting roles, all under the leadership of supervisor Matthew Butler and producer Denise Davis. Early tests began in October 2013, with the majority of the effects work starting after principal photography wrapped in September 2014 and finishing by June 2015. The video game characters would be built out of boxy voxels to resemble the low resolution pixel-based arcades, while also emitting light and having raster scan defects in its animation to appear more like they came from a CRT monitor. Along with the actual sprite sheets, a major inspiration to build the 3D versions was the cabinet art, which Imageworks visual effects supervisor Daniel Kramer considered "was the intention the game creators wanted their technology to be, but the technology couldn't live up to creating that". The most complex characters to model were Q*Bert, which interacted the most with humans and had the problem of looking round despite being built out of cubes, and Donkey Kong, whom the animators wanted to remain recognizable even from different angles.[32][37][38]

The score was composed by Henry Jackman.[6] In June 2015, Waka Flocka Flame released a single entitled "Game On", featuring Good Charlotte, which serves as part of the film's soundtrack.[39] A rendition of "We Will Rock You" by Queen remixed by Helmut VonLichten is heard during the Donkey Kong scenes. When Eddie Blast is posing to Serena Williams, a rendition of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", by Tears for Fears, is played on stage. "Surrender" By Cheap Trick is also heard in the film.

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