Films of 2011

Top 10 films of 2011 General research and trivia

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt 2 Adventure / Drama / Fantasy / Mystery Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint Director: David Yates

Harry Potter and the

quest of finding and

taking place on 21

a 2011 epic fantasy-drama

Lord’s three remaining

the series’ closure of

Deathly Hallows – Part 2 is film directed by David

Yates and the second of two films based on the

novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling. It is the eighth

and final instalment in the Harry Potter film series,

written by Steve Kloves and produced by David Heyman, David Barron,

destroying the Dark

Horcruxes, the magical

items responsible for his immortality. But as the

mystical Deathly Hallows are uncovered, and

Voldemort finds out about their mission, the biggest battle begins and life as

they know it will never be the same again.

and Rowling.

Filming

Synopsis

Principal photography

The final chapter begins

2009, and was completed

as Harry, Ron, and

Hermione continue their

began on 19 February on 12 June 2010,with

the final day of reshoots

December 2010, marking ten years of filming. Part 2 was released in 2D,

3D and IMAX cinemas

worldwide from 13–15 July 2011, and is the only Harry Potter film to be released entirely in 3D. Box Office The film opened to

critical acclaim and is

among the best reviewed films of 2011.At the box office, Part 2 claimed

the worldwide opening

weekend record, earning

$483.2 million, as well as

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setting opening day and

2011. In October 2011,

in various countries.

Deathly Hallows – Part 2

opening weekend records

The film is currently the

third highest grossing film of all time, the highest

grossing film of 2011, the highest grossing film in

the Harry Potter series,

and the ninth film ever to gross over $1 billion.

DVD Release The Blu-ray and DVD

sets were released on 11 November 2011 in the

United States, and was released in the United

Kingdom on 2 December

Harry Potter and the

was declared the highest pre-ordered Blu-ray and DVD ever by Amazon.

com. The film was also released in the Harry

Potter: Complete 8-Film Collection box set on

DVD and Blu-ray, which included all eight films

and new special features.

Part 1 and Part 2 were

released as a combo pack on DVD and Blu-ray on 11 November 2011, in Canada.

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Cast • Daniel Radcliffe as

Harry Potter, the film’s protagonist.

• Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley, Harry’s best

friend and Hermione’s romantic interest.

• Emma Watson as

Hermione Granger, Harry’s best friend and Ron’s romantic interest.

• Ralph Fiennes as Lord

Voldemort, an evil, powerhungry wizard, and the

leader of the Death Eaters.

The chief antagonist of the series.

• Michael Gambon as

Albus Dumbledore, former headmaster of Hogwarts killed two films earlier by Severus Snape.

• Alan Rickman as

Severus Snape, former Potions and Defence

Against the Dark Arts teacher and the new

headmaster of Hogwarts.

• Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy, a Death Eater

and son of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy.

• John Hurt as Ollivander,

a wandmaker abducted by the Death Eaters.

• Maggie Smith as

Minerva McGonagall, the Transfiguration

teacher and the Head of the Gryffindor house at Hogwarts.

• Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange, a Death Eater and Sirius Black’s cousin and murderer.

• Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy, Draco Malfoy’s father and a disgraced Death Eater.

• Kelly Macdonald as

Helena Ravenclaw, the ghost of Ravenclaw at Hogwarts. Macdonald

replaces Nina Young, who portrayed the character in a cameo in the first film.

• Gary Oldman as Sirius

Black, Harry’s godfather.

Killed in battle three

films earlier by Bellatrix Lestrange.

• Robbie Coltrane as

Rubeus Hagrid, Harry’s half-giant friend and a

former staff at Hogwarts.

• Warwick Davis as Filius Flitwick, the

Charms master and

Head of the Ravenclaw house at Hogwarts;

and Griphook, a goblin

and former employee at Gringotts Bank. For the role of Griphook, Davis

replaces Verne Troyer, who portrayed the character in the first film.

• David Thewlis as Remus Lupin, a member of the

Order of the Phoenix and

a former Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts.

• Julie Walters as Molly Weasley, the Weasley

matriarch and a mother figure to Harry.

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Box Office all time records As a result of the film’s enormous success, it currently holds the following U.S./Canadian box office records:

Top 10 lists #2 - Lou Lumenick, New York Post #2 - Josh Horowitz, MTV

#3 - Col Needham, IMDB #4 Empire

#4 Mike Scott, The Times-Picayune

#5 Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle #5 Jaime N. Christley, Slant #5 TV Guide

#7 Moviefone

#7 Mike Giuliano, Baltimore Sun #8 Gregory Ellwood, HitFix

#9 Ray Greene, Boxoffice Magazine #10 Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

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Transformers: Dark of the Moon Action / Adventure / Sci Fi Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley Director: Michael Bay

Transformers: Dark of the

during their collaboration

and John Turturro reprised

science fiction action film

Elements: Supporters

Peter Cullen and Hugo

Moon is a 2011 American based on the Transformers toy line. First released on June 23, 2011, it is the third installment of the

live-action Transformers film series.

Like its predecessors, Transformers and

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers: Dark of the Moon is

directed by Michael Bay

and produced by Steven

Spielberg. The film’s story is set three years after

the events of the second film, with the Autobots,

with the NEST (Networked and Transformers) military force, discovering a

hidden alien technology

in possession of humans, which had been found by

Apollo 11 on the Moon 42

years prior. Meanwhile, the Decepticons unveil a plan to use said technology

their starring roles, with Weaving returning as

the voices of Optimus

Prime and Megatron, and Kevin Dunn and Julie

White reprising their roles as the parents of the

main protagonist, Sam Witwicky.

to enslave Humanity in

English model Rosie

planet of the Transformers,

replaced Megan Fox as

order to save the home Cybertron.

Cast Shia LaBeouf, Josh

Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson,

Huntington-Whiteley

the lead female character; the cast also saw the additions of Patrick

Dempsey, John Malkovich, Ken Jeong, and Frances

McDormand. As well with

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Leonard Nimoy, Keith

Szarabajka, Ron Bottitta, John DiMaggio, George Coe, Francesco Quinn,

James Remar, and Greg

Berg who joined the film’s

voice cast. The script was written by Ehren Kruger, who also collaborated

Indiana, Washington, D.C.,

Foster. The novel is a

Chicago. The film was

Transformers. It follows

Moscow, Florida, and

rendered specifically for

3-D, and the visual effects involved more complex

robots which took longer to render.

on the narrative of the

Story

Bay stated this would be

Unlike the two previous

series.

which were based

second film of the series. his last installment in the

Dark of the Moon was shot with both regular

35mm film cameras and specially developed 3-D cameras, with filming locations including

prequel to the 2007 film the same story structure as Dark of the Moon,

being set in 1969, the year of Apollo 11. The story

structure differs slightly,

though, because the novel was written merely as

prequel to the first film.

Transformers installments,

Cast

solely on the script

• Shia LaBeouf as Sam

Transformers: Dark of the

graduate who is once

writers’ endemic story, Moon was based on a

novel called Transformers: Ghosts of Yesterday,

written by Alan Dean

Witwicky, a recent college again tied to the fate of Earth’s survival.

• Rosie Huntington-

Whiteley as Carly Spencer,

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• Tyrese Gibson as USAF

former member of NEST.

Decepticons, who is still

NEST major

“Deep” Wang, a paranoid

final battle of Revenge of

Sam’s work.

• Leonard Nimoy as

General Morshower,

Prime’s predecessor as

Buzz Aldrin appears as

who transforms into a red

Prime at the NEST

Panther Fire Truck. He was

• Ken Jeong as Jerry

badly wounded from the

software programmer at

the Fallen.

• Glenn Morshower as

Sentinel Prime, Optimus

leader of NEST.

the leader of the Autobots

himself, meeting Optimus

and black Rosenbauer

headquarters.

also a mentor to Optimus.

• Julie White as Judy

Transformers

Ironhide, the Autobots’

• John Malkovich as

• Peter Cullen as Optimus

specialist.

• Frances McDormand as

Autobots and keeper of

Starscream, Megatron’s

Chief Robert Epps, former • Josh Duhamel as Lt.

Colonel William Lennox.

• John Turturro as

Seymour Simmons,

Patrick Dempsey as Dylan Gould, a wealthy car

collector who is secretly in cahoots with Megatron.

• Kevin Dunn as Ron

Witwicky, Sam’s father.

Witwicky, Sam’s mother.

Bruce Brazos,

Charlotte Mearing,

• Lester Speight as

“Hardcore” Eddie, a

• Jess Harnell as

cantankerous weapons

Prime, leader of the

• Charlie Adler as

the Matrix of Leadership.

second-in-command.

• Hugo Weaving as

Megatron, leader of the

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Effects

unlike a plain surface

to fully render Devastator

On the last weekend of

or an animated head.” The

is approximately a frame

the Moon, the company’s

style of cinematography

being used for the

robots into the scenes, as

than 200,000 hours

foreground/midground/

day—or equivalent to

shots, even in normal live-

subject like a human head

ILM’s work on Dark of

supervisor said that Bay’s

entire render farm was

helped integrate the

film, giving ILM more

“Michael is keen on having

of rendering power a

background depth in his

22.8 years of rendering

action shots.

[10] Farrar embraced the

The most complicated

robots for 3-D, making

“Driller”, a giant snake-like

the Transformers’ faces

body and spinning rotator

the nooks and crannies of

In Revenge of the Fallen,

time in a 24-hour period. detail in creating giant

effects involved the

sure that in close-ups of

creature with an eel-like

“you see all the details in

blades, knives and teeth.

these pieces. It’s totally

it took 72 hours per frame

for the IMAX format, which amount of 4,000. For the

Driller, which required the entire render farm, it was

up to 122 hours per frame.

[63] The most complex

scene involved the Driller destroying a computergenerated skyscraper,

which took 288 hours per frame.

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Reception

Transformers: Dark of the

$771,356,453 in other

The film has received

and a rating average

total of $1,123,746,996.

from film critics. While

special effects and 3-D

was an improvement over

impressive, but they aren’t

the Fallen and were also

bloated running time, or

effects and 3-D action

script.”Metacritic, another

over the long running

the film a Metascore of

Moon a score of 35%

mixed to negative reviews

of 4.9/10, saying, “Its

many of them believed it

shots are undeniably

Transformers: Revenge of

enough to fill up its loud,

praising the film’s visual

mask its thin, indifferent

sequences, criticism fell

review aggregator, gave

time, the below average

42/100.

Several critics also felt

Box Office

still did not live up to the

Transformers: Dark

Film review aggregator

$352,390,543 in

acting, and the script.

that Dark of the Moon

first Transformers movie.

of the Moon grossed

Rotten Tomatoes gave

North America, and

territories, for a worldwide It is the highest-grossing film of the franchise. It is

also the second highestgrossing film of 2011

worldwide, behind Harry Potter and the Deathly

Hallows – Part 2. On its

first weekend worldwide, the film made $382.4 million, marking the

third-largest opening of

all timem It has made the

second-largest worldwide debut at IMAX venues, with $23.1 million.

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The Hangover: Part II Comedy Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms Director: Todd Phillips

The Hangover Part II

Phil, Stu, Alan, and Doug

their roles from the first

comedy film produced

for Stu’s wedding. After

October 2010, in Ontario,

is a 2011 American

by Legendary Pictures and distributed by

Warner Bros. Pictures,

and a sequel to 2009’s The Hangover. Todd Phillips directed the

film in addition to co-

authoring the script with Craig Mazin, and Scott Armstrong.

as they travel to Thailand the bachelor party in

Las Vegas, Stu takes

no chances and opts for a safe, subdued

pre-wedding brunch.

However, things do not

go as planned, resulting

in another bad hangover with no memories of the previous night.

Synopsis

Development of The

The film stars Bradley

April 2009, two months

Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha. The Hangover

Part II tells the story of

Hangover Part II began in before The Hangover was released. The principal actors were cast in

March 2010 to reprise

film. Production began in

California, before moving on location in Thailand.

The film was released on

May 26, 2011 and, despite receiving negative reviews from critics, became the

highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time.

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Cast

Box Office

• Bradley Cooper as Phil

The Hangover Part II has

• Ed Helms as Dr. Stuart

the US and Canada, and

Wenneck

“Stu” Price

• Zach Galifianakis as Alan Garner

• Justin Bartha as Doug Billings

• Ken Jeong as Leslie Chow

• Jeffrey Tambor as Sid Garner

• Jamie Chung as Lauren, Stu’s fiancée

• Bryan Callen as Samir, a smarmy strip club owner in Bangkok

• Mason Lee as Teddy, Lauren’s brother

• Paul Giamatti as

Kingsley, an undercover Interpol agent

• Sasha Barrese as Tracy Billings, Doug’s wife • Gillian Vigman as

Stephanie Wenneck, Phil’s wife

• Yasmin Lee as Kimmy • Nirut Sirijanya as Lauren’s father

grossed $254,464,305 in

$327,000,000 elsewhere, for a worldwide gross of $581,464,305. On

its opening weekend, it earned $177.8 million,

which was the highestgrossing worldwide

opening for a comedy film, taking the record

from The Simpsons Movie ($170.9 million). On the

weekend of June 17–19, 2011, it out-grossed its

predecessor in worldwide earnings to become the

highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time.

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Reception The Hangover Part II

received mostly negative reviews from critics.

The review aggregator,

Rotten Tomatoes, gives the film a score of 35% based on 221 reviews

from critics with a rating

average of 5.0 out of 10.

The website’s critical

consensus is that the

film is “a crueler, darker, raunchier carbon copy of the first installment”

and “lacks the element of

surprise – and most of the

joy – that helped make the original a hit.”

Metacritic, which assigns

a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews

from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of

44 based on 40 reviews.

[65] CinemaScore polls

reported that the average

Andrew Barker of Variety

average review stating,

review, stating, “The

plays like a challenge to

gave the film a negative stock dismissal ‘more

of the same’ has rarely been more accurately applied to a sequel

than to The Hangover

the audience’s capacity for raunchiness. It gets

laughs, but some of them are in disbelief”.

Part II, which ranks as

Conversely, Michael

copy of its predecessor

Hollywood Reporter

little more than a faded superimposed on a

more brightly colored background”.

Christy Lemire of the

Associated Press said,

“Giving the people what they want is one thing.

Rechtshaffen of The gave The Hangover

Part II a positive review

remarking, “What happens in Bangkok isn’t as much fun as when it happened

in Vegas, but it’s still worth the trip”.

Making nearly the exact

Lou Lumenick of the New

time, but shifting the

are definitely laughs

same movie a second

setting to Thailand, is just ... what, lazy? Arrogant?

Maybe a combination of the two”.

grade moviegoers gave

Roger Ebert of the

to F scale.

also gave the film an

the film was a A- on an A+

“The Hangover Part II

Chicago Sun-Times

York Post said, “There to be had, even if the

three leads often seem

to be going through the motions”.

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Paul Adventure / Comedy / Sci Fi Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen Director: Greg Mottola

Paul is a 2011 science

Close Encounters of the

Invincible artist Ryan

directed by Greg Mottola,

Extra Terrestrial, as well

the film as The Big Guy’s

fiction comedy film

written by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. It stars Pegg, Frost, and the

Third Kind and E.T. the

as their favorite science fiction films.

voice of Seth Rogen as

After they mentioned the

film contains numerous

suggested he might make

the title character. The references to other

science fiction films,

especially those of Steven Spielberg, as well as to general science fiction fandom.

In an interview for the DVD release of Paul, Pegg and Frost made the film to

demonstrate their love for Steven Spielberg’s films

Ottley, had a cameo in henchmen.

Box Office

project to Spielberg, he

In North America, Paul

a cameo appearance,

at #5, with $13,043,310

and a scene was added

to include him as a voice on a speakerphone in

1980 discussing ideas

with Paul for his soon to become box office hit

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

According to Robert

Kirkman, he, along with Invincible co-creator

Cory Walker and current

opened in March 2011

behind Limitless, Rango, Battle: Los Angeles,

and The Lincoln Lawyer.

The film closed after 63 days in theaters,

grossing $37,412,945

domestically, just below its $40 million budget.

With the international $57 million gross, the film is considered a success.

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The premise for Paul came

brand, the settings had

with the controversy of

2003, while they were

crowds, and extras were

Religion and Creationism,

from Pegg and Frost in

filming Shaun of the Dead.

To help with the script,

Pegg and Frost went on

their own road trip across America and used ideas

from it to add to the script.

According to Mottola,

the film was given the

green-light shortly before

the late-2000s recession;

if had been delayed, “they probably wouldn’t have made the movie.” The

budget for the film was around $40 million.

After obtaining permission to use the Comic-Con

to be changed to avoid

used to portray attendees since there had been

some issues regarding

filming inside San Diego’s actual convention center.

During filming, Joe Lo

Truglio was a stand-in

for the character Paul,

the only character who

was created by CGI. Seth Rogen did some motion

capture in pre-production and voice work during post-production.

Numerous scenes

throughout the film deal

Darwin and Evolution vs. with the character of

Paul the alien being the proverbial ‘fly-in-the-

ointment’ of conservative Judeo/Christian/Islamic doctrine. Simon Pegg

and Nick Frost, who are

atheists, have alluded in BBC Radio interviews they had wished to

delve deeper into the controversy but cut

several scenes short in

favor of flow and timing on film.

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• Simon Pegg as Graeme

O’Reilly

find a comedy that also

• Nick Frost as Clive

Moses Buggs, Ruth’s

dream come true’.

Willy

Gollings

• Jason Bateman as

Special Agent Lorenzo

Zoil. Bateman described his character as an

“exaggerated nasty guy”.

Bateman also stated he based Zoil on Yaphet

Kotto in Midnight Run and Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive.

• Kristen Wiig as Ruth Buggs

• Bill Hader as Agent Haggard

• Blythe Danner as Tara Walton

• Joe Lo Truglio as Agent

• John Carroll Lynch as father

• Jane Lynch as Pat Stevenson

• David Koechner as

Gus, a hilbilly Graeme and Clive first encounter in a Nevada gas station.

• Jesse Plemons as Jake, Gus’s friend.

• Sigourney Weaver as “The Big Guy”. Weaver

described the role as “a

dream come true”. In an interview with Graham

Norton, Weaver stated:

‘It’s a love letter to sci-fi fans. I jumped at the

chance to be in it. To

pays homage to sci-fi is a • Seth Rogen as Paul (voice)

• Jeffrey Tambor as Adam Shadowchild, a famous science fiction writer

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Reception As of September 2011, the

cheeky and very, very

effects, convincing

positive reviews;

at E.T. in the same way

taste humour.”

film has received generally

Rotten Tomatoes gives

the film a score of 72% based on 184 reviews,

with an average rating of

6.3 out of 10; it fared less well among 36 of that

website’s “top critics”,

scoring a 58% (21 fresh reviews and 15 rotten).

Empire rated the film

“excellent” (four stars out of five) stating, “Broader

and more accessible than either Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, Paul is pure Pegg and Frost – clever,

funny. You’ll never look again.”

SFX also gives the film four stars out of five,

saying “the film veers dangerously close

to alienating (no pun intended) all but its

geek core audience, [though] the more

characterisation and bad

Peter Bradshaw gave the film two stars out of five and called it a

“goofy, amiable piece

of silliness” exhibiting

“self-indulgence” and

possessing a “distinct

shortage of real gags”

obvious concessions to

On the same scale Nigel

never enough to derail

only one star, calling it a

a mainstream crowd [are] the film’s laugh-a-minute ride”;

SFX also calls it a “triumph of visual

Andrews gave the film

“faltering extraterrestrial knockabout”.

The Independent grades the film two stars out

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of five, saying “Pegg is

likeable as usual, Frost

more doltish than usual, and Kristen Wiig an

appealing convert from

Bible thumper to ladette”, and notes that “from

time to time, clever ideas rear their heads – like

the idea that ‘Paul’ has

been the brains behind all science fiction and UFO initiatives for the

last 30 years, including

Close Encounters and The X-Files – but they soon

return to the film’s default setting of laddish japes

and a conviction that the word ‘cocksucker’ will always get a laugh.”

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Super 8 Mystery / Sci Fi / Thriller Elle Fanning, Amanda Michalka, Kyle Chandler Director: J.J. Abrams

Super 8 is a 2011

filmed in Weirton, West

action thriller film written

areas.

American science fiction and directed by J. J.

Virginia and surrounding

Abrams and produced

Abrams and Spielberg

film stars Joel Courtney,

storytelling committee

by Steven Spielberg. The Elle Fanning, and Kyle Chandler and was

released on June 10, 2011 in conventional and IMAX theaters in the US.

The film tells the story of a group of young teenagers who are filming their own Super 8 movie in a small town in 1979 when a

train derails, releasing a

dangerous presence into

their town. The movie was

collaborated in a

to come up with the

story for the film. The

film was initially reported to be either a sequel or

prequel to the 2008 film

Cloverfield, but this was

quickly denied by Abrams.

Primary photography began in fall 2010.

To promote the film, Valve Corporation created a

short video game segment and released it alongside

the PC and Mac versions of Portal 2.

Abrams’ original plan was

to film all of the sequences for the film-within-a-film “The Case” in Super-8 using Pro8mm stock

and cameras. However, this approach proved

unsuccessful, as visual

effects house Industrial

Light and Magic found it impossible to integrate

CGI into the footage due

to the format’s graininess.

For sequences involving CGI, cinematographer

Larry Fong used Super-16 instead.

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Viral marketing Like Cloverfield, an

Super 8 camera films.

Rocket Poppeteers was

produced film, Super 8

found a hidden message,

no direct part in the film

extensive viral marketing

Saw”, contained in the

trailer for the movie was

This led to a website,

released in May 2010. The

Saw, which simulated the

a section of Area 51 being

contained various clues

and its contents being

computer was eventually

to Ohio. A pickup truck

Woodward, the son of Dr.

train, derailing it, and

to find out what happened

smashed open while a

website,

earlier J. J. Abrams-

Fans analyzing the trailer

was promoted through an

“Scariest Thing I Ever

campaign. The first

final frames of the trailer.

attached to Iron Man 2,

Scariest Thing I Ever

trailer gave the premise of

interface of a PDP-11 and

closed down in 1979

to the film’s storyline; the

transported by freight train

revealed to belong to Josh

drives into the oncoming

Woodward, who is trying

one of the carriages is

to his father. Another viral

also found, which plays but is indirectly related.

The Super 8 website also contained an “editing room” section, which

asked users to find various clips from around the web and piece them together.

When completed, the

reel makes up the film

found by the kids in Dr. Woodward’s trailer.

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Cast

Box Office

• Joel Courtney

Super 8 had a production

• Kyle Chandler as Jackson “Jack” Lamb

It was commercially

• Elle Fanning

• Ron Eldard as Louis Dainard

• Riley Griffiths as Charles Kaznyk • Ryan Lee as Cary

• Zach Mills as Preston

• Gabriel Basso as Martin

• Noah Emmerich as Colonel Nelec • Bruce Greenwood as Cooper[5]

• Amanda Michalka as Jen Kaznyk

• Michael Hitchcock as Deputy Rosko • Caitriona Balfe as Elizabeth Lamb

• Joel McKinnon Miller as Mr. Kaznyk • Jessica Tuck as Mrs. Kaznyk • David Gallagher as Donny

• Glynn Turman as Dr. Thomas Woodward • Dan Castellaneta as Izzy

• Richard T. Jones as Overmyer

budget of $50 million. released on June 10,

2011. In the United States and Canada, it opened in 3,379 theaters and

grossed over $35.4 million on its opening weekend, ranking first at the box

office. The film grossed $127 million in North

America with a worldwide

total of some $260 million.

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Critical Response Super 8 received

of 4 and said, “Super 8 is

Abrams has an eye for

professional critics. On

not for a time but for a

of indelible images – a

Rotten Tomatoes, the

shell-shocked young

82%, and a rating average

story and not pounded

assigned the film a

aggressive action. Abrams

40 critics.

with tenderness and

Chris Sosa of Gather gave

named it one of the Top 10

positive reviews from

a wonderful film, nostalgia

movie review aggregator

style of filmmaking, when

film received a score of

audiences were told a

of 7.4/10, Metacritic

over the head with

Metascore of 72 based on

treats early adolescence

awe, his deft orchestration tank trundling through

a children’s playground, a plot-pivotal landmark framed in the distance

through a small hole in a bedroom wall – marking

him as a born storyteller”.

affection.” Richard Corliss

Most of the film’s negative

the film an A rating, calling

Best Movies of 2011.

negatively on the film’s

tale of finding one’s

Jamie Graham of Total

tragedy.” Roger Ebert

perfect five-star rating,

it, “a gripping and exciting place in the world amidst

Film gave the film a

gave the film 3½ stars out

saying, “like Spielberg,

reviews commented

ending and its frequent

homages to the early films of Steven Spielberg.

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X-Men: First Class Action / Adventure / Sci Fi / Thriller James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence Director: Matthew Vaughn

X-Men: First Class

James McAvoy as Xavier

stages in Los Angeles.

superhero film by

as Lensherr. Other cast

reviews, praising the

is a 2011 American Matthew Vaughn and

produced by Bryan Singer, based on the X-Men

characters appearing

in Marvel Comics. The fifth installment in the

X-Men series, the film acts as a prequel for

the X-Men trilogy, being set primarily in 1962

during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It focuses on the relationship between

Charles Xavier and Erik

Lensherr and the origin of their groups, the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants. The film stars

and Michael Fassbender members include Kevin Bacon, January Jones, Rose Byrne, Jennifer

Lawrence, ZoĂŤ Kravitz,

Nicholas Hoult and Lucas Till.

Announced as early as

2006, First Class entered its production on August 2010, being finished just three weeks before its

premiere on June 2011.

Locations included

Oxford, the Mojave

desert and Georgia, with

soundstage work in both Pinewood Studios and the 20th Century Fox

The film received positive writing and acting and

considering First Class a fresh new beginning for

the franchise, and was a box-office success with

earnings of $353 million worldwide.

Top 10 Research

Box Office

film ($54.5 million). First

million ) and Australia

In North America, the film

locations in 74 overseas

weekend X-Men: First

6,900 screens at 3,641

in $61 million during the

atop the weekend box

in the overseas ranking

$55.1 million across the

Caribbean: On Stranger

$3.37 million at its

Part II.

This opening was much

The film opened atop

weekends of X-Men:

countries, with the

million), X2: X-Men United

in the United Kingdom

Origins: Wolverine ($85.0

previews), France ($7.1

higher than the original

million), South Korea ($5.4

Class also opened 8,900

opened on approximately

markets, which brought

locations, debuting

weekend - standing third

office with earnings of

behind Pirates of the

three days, including

Tides and The Hangover

Friday midnight launch. lower than the opening

the box office in twenty

The Last Stand ($102.7

biggest grosses being

($85.5 million), and X-Men

($9 million, including

million), but it was slightly

million), Mexico ($5

($5.1 million). In its second Class dropped 56.2%, the second smallest

second weekend drop in

the franchise behind X-2: X-Men United (53.2%), and came in with an

estimated $24.1 million,

in second place to Super 8.Overseas, it raised to number two with $42.2

million. The film grossed $146,408,305 in the

United States and Canada as well as $207,215,819 internationally, bringing its worldwide total to $353,624,124.

Top 10 Research

Filming & effects

designers Simon Clowes

website Rotten Tomatoes

Vaughn said he shot

Prologue Films, who were

and a rating of 7.4/10 from

“to create a widescreen

credits and tried to do

emblematic of ‘60s

be done with traditional

James Bond films”.

animation depicts DNA

Matt Johnson added

geometric shapes,

the digital interior of

both Saul Bass and

the ‘60s vibe, we put in

the Bond films.

such as lens flare and

Critical response

edge fringing.”[17] The

The film has received

were also invoked by

with the review aggregator

and Kyle Cooper of

the film in anamorphic

responsible for the end

experience, which is

something that “could

movies, such as the

optical”. The credits

Visual effects supervisor

strands through simple

that for the lighting of

drawing inspiration from

Cerebro, “keeping with

Maurice Binder’s work in

some old school elements chromatic aberration and aesthetics of the decade

strongly positive reviews,

showing 87% freshness 231 reviews counted as of November 15, 2011, the consensus being

“With a strong script, stylish direction, and

powerful performances

from its well-rounded cast, X-Men: First Class is a

welcome return to form for the franchise.”[75]

On Metacritic, the film

received 65 out of 100 based on 37 reviews.