The Pixelators

The Pixelators is a 2016 American 3D computer-animated comedy film produced by 20th Century Fox Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It was written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller from a screenplay by Derek Connolly, and Rodney Rothman, with a story by Lord, Miller, Connolly, and Nicole Perlman, and features an cast with the voices of Tom Holland, Anna Kendrick, Kevin Hart, Jason Statham, Ryan Reynolds, Zoe Saldana, Keegan-Michael Key, Jason Sudeikis, Gabriel Iglesias, Ellie Kemper, Kristen Wiig and Jenny Slate and tells the story of two video game designers which they get sucked into an video game universe deep inside the realms of a magic arcade cabinet.

The Pixelators premiered on November 23, 2016 at the Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles, and went into general release on December 9 in 3D, IMAX 3D and Dolby Cinema. The film had mixed reviews from critics who praised the animation, score, character design, and voice acting but criticized the plot and lack of originality. The film was a box office success, grossing $592 million worldwide against a $155 million budget and receiving an nomination for Best Animated Feature at the 44th Annie Awards, and was also nominated for Best Original Score, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing at the 89th Academy Awards. A sequel, The Pixelators: Level Two, was released on February 7, 2020.

Plot
Bryce Jones is a 19-year-old video game designer living with his mother Harper. After his father died, he began starting to profess his love for video games when he was just 6 years old. 12 years later, after being inspired by games and graduated from gaming school, he finally became a video game designer along with his best friend Carl Stevenson. One year after becoming a video game designer, he has been working on his own video game titled Cop Stories. With the game almost complete, Bryce designs the main character of the game, Alice Summers, an young woman who is struggling to become a police officer in the game's story. Later that day, Carl meets up with Bryce to tell him that he found a old game arcade cabinet titled "Pixel City" over at an abandoned arcade. Later that night, Bryce and Carl discover the arcade machine at the abandoned arcade and then they tried that machine out. Bryce pushes the start button on the machine, then nothing happened at first with Bryce saying it does not work, but all of a sudden, the arcade starts to have a blinding white flash that begins to suck up random things in the arcade building. Bryce and Carl try to escape, but they fail and get sucked into the arcade cabinet.

Bryce and Carl discover an video game city deep inside the realms of the arcade cabinet, and they meet a penguin named Peppy that can talk and be understood in the video game universe, though the gamers playing his own game simply hear him as a normal penguin. Later, the gang are then attacked by a party of Virus Ninjas, which are Lord Hex's minions.

The trio escape and Peppy explains to Bryce and Carl that Hex is planning to wipe out and erase the entire video game universe with the power of hacking out the Pixel Gems in the Game Temple.

In order to defeat Hex and stop him from wiping out the video game world, The gang must form a team named The Pixelators. Peppy leads the gang to Bryce's own video game, Cop Stories. Entering that game, Bryce becomes enthralled with his own game coming to life and its own action-oriented adventures. Peppy shows the trio to an secret underground battle arena where all game characters can fight off their enemies. The arena's owner, Carlos recognizes Peppy, who injured his Black Dragon in a previous battle, and demands a another rematch. He doses the Black Dragon with gas that makes creatures go wild, stirring the dragon into a violent rage, and Peppy is unable to summon his powers to fight back. While attempting to save Peppy, Bryce knocks Carlos over and breaks several gas vials, sending the arena's creatures into a frenzy. The arena is raided by police and the gang is taken by Alice Summers, who is actually trying to save them from city criminal Carlos, and his friends, The Master Rapper and Big Bill.

Carlos and his friends try to stop the gang, starting a car chase between the two, with the help of Alice's amazing driving talent to escape the criminals, but unfortunately Peppy accidentally takes the steering wheel, making the police car crash under a bridge, but surprisingly escaped from Carlos. Later at the police station, the chief suspends Alice from her job after not trying to catch Carlos, and for destroying her own police car, leaving Alice saddened. Bryce then apologizes to Alice for getting her suspended, but she tells him that it's her fault, since she is trying very hard to become a great cop but fails due to her clumsy and childish acts. Alice then invites Bryce, Carl, and Peppy to her apartment and tells the trio how Alice became a cop after Lord Hex invaded her home and kidnapped her mom when she was young. Bryce then tells Alice if she interested in joining the Pixelators and defeat Hex once and for all, and Alice thinks about it, remembering her kidnapped mother, and finally accepting it.

The team later head to a adventure video game titled The Nature Legend where Nya and Jay are in, and later on, they are attacked by Virus Ninjas again, chasing them though the forest, but are fended off by an shockwave bomb which Peppy threw at the ninjas. They then end up a field of colossal Nature Giants, where Nya saves the team. After Nya saves Bryce, Carl, Peppy, and Alice, they are subsequently attacked by men on motorbikes which Nya calls them "Forest Savages", but manage to escape by fleeing through the trees and jumping off a cliff into a river. After all that, Nya takes the team to the forest village, and explained about Lord Hex stealing the game's own Forest Crystal from its shrine, gaining control of all the forest's animals and plans to use to it to have the animals invade Pixel City along with his plans to erase the video game universe. Nya then tells Alice to warn everyone in Pixel City and the only way to get back there is to go through Fox World. There, Alice befriends the Fox Animation Girls, being encouraged by them to address her sense of unfulfillment and reaching an epiphany. Meanwhile, Lord Hex's forces invade the village, where Bryce and Nya attempts to fight them off, but they are soon confronted by Hex himself, only just escaping when Jay throws a smoke grenade as a distraction and leads them to a secret passage. Alice meets back up with the team at an mountain, where she forgot to tell the citizens of Pixel City, after being caught up with the Fox Animation Girls, getting Peppy, Carl and Nya frustrated, but Bryce forgives her.

Bryce, Peppy, Carl and Alice leave The Nature Legend game and ending up in a game called Dance Frenzy!. While there, the team must dance their way out in order to leave and get to the Game Temple, as told by Trinity, the host of the game. They are once again attacked by the Virus Ninjas, and their actions cause the gamer to delete the game off of their console. Bryce and Alice escape, but Peppy and Carl is taken along with the game and ends up in the trash. As the result of losing their friends, Bryce gets outraged and ends his friendship with Alice, leaving her heartbroken and in tears while Bryce decides to find the temple himself.

Suddenly, after Bryce left, Alice is captured by Hex and his henchmen, along with Peppy and Carl where they actually ended up in Hex's prison while Alice is taken captive by Hex himself. Meanwhile, Bryce finds the Game Temple but the temple's guardians told him to find his epiphany in order to save the universe. Bryce, Nya and Jay devise a plan to infiltrate Hex's lair and save Alice, Peppy, and Carl from his prison. Bryce later saves Alice, Peppy, and Carl and helps them escape the prison, setting off all the security alerts, overloading the prison's system. However, Hex captures Alice and strapped her to the top of Pixel Tower, where Hex unveil the gems to destroy the game universe once and for all. Peppy finally summons his powers to battle Hex's henchmen while Bryce frees Alice from the tower. The two escape, but Hex traps Bryce under rubble and threatens to kill him when every video game hero appears to fight off Hex's crew. Bryce later finds Hex in his lair, just about to break the gems. Bryce fights Hex throughout the lair and Hex accidentally knocks the gems into the energy beam, breaking them. With Bryce is nearly killed, he realizes that he must follow the epiphany that the temple's guardians told him. Bryce knocks Hex with one of his own weapons and throws him at the self-destruct button, with a huge explosion destroying Hex's lair. As the townspeople of Pixel City believing Bryce is dead, but it turns out that he survived the explosion. Hex and his enforcers are arrested and Bryce repairs the gems, saving the video game universe. Bryce embraces the responsibilities of his new life with the Pixelators now being hailed as heroes. Despite saving the video game universe, Alice and Peppy are fired from their games for disobedience and major city destruction, but however they are quickly reinstated by the Game Temple's guardians and Mayor Mark, the mayor of Pixel City, to form the Pixelators team, and assures the gang the team was only the beginning for them.

Meanwhile, Hex, still in possession of one of the Pixel Gems and having lost his sanity, begins plotting his revenge.

Cast
Several characters from other Fox films and media also make cameo appearances with their original or current voice actors, such as Kristen Bell as Alaina Gleen, Mandy Moore as Kate Anderson from Kate &amp; Chris, Selena Gomez as Crystal, Anne Hathaway as Princess Joanna from Puppet Pals, John Leguizamo as Sid from Ice Age, Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson from The Simpsons, Meg Ryan as Anastasia "Anya" Romanova from Anastasia, and Andy Serkis as Caesar from the Planet of the Apes reboot films.
 * Tom Holland as Bryce Jones
 * Jason Drucker as an young Bryce Jones
 * Anna Kendrick as Officer Alice Summers
 * Kevin Hart as Carl Stevenson
 * Jason Statham as Lord Hex
 * Ryan Reynolds as Peppy Penguin
 * Zoe Saldana as Nya, a nature warrior princess
 * Jason Sudeikis as Jay, a speedy bird-like creature
 * Ellie Kemper as Amelia, the gatekeeper of Pixel City
 * Gabriel Iglesias as Carlos
 * Keegan-Michael Key as The Master Rapper
 * John Cena as Big Bill, an tough fighter
 * Kristen Wiig as Harper Jones, Bryce's mother
 * Jenny Slate as Trinity, a "super cool" dancer.
 * Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill as Ed and Elliot, two multicolored shape-shifting creatures who annoy Bryce.
 * Nick Offerman as Wizman, an wizard
 * Patrick Stewart as Mayor Mark, the mayor of Pixel City
 * Will Forte as Mr. Marshmallow
 * Seth Green as Hack Master #1
 * Chris Hardwick as Hack Master #2
 * Grey Griffin as Hack Master #3 / Police Officer #3
 * Phil LaMarr as Police Officer #1
 * Christopher Miller as Police Officer #2
 * Nolan North as The Police Chief
 * Cam Clarke, John DiMaggio, and Kari Wahlgren as The Game Temple Guardians

ADR Voice Performers

 * Steve Apostolina
 * Maggie Baird
 * Daniel Booko
 * Jen Cain
 * Catherine Cavadini
 * David Cowgill
 * Debi Derryberry
 * Terri Douglas
 * Jeffrey Todd Fischer
 * Johnny Gidcomb
 * Jackie Gonneau
 * Joanna Leeds
 * Susan Leslie
 * Yuri Lowenthal
 * Scott Menville
 * Max Mittelman
 * Heidi Brook Myers
 * Matt Nolan
 * Arthur Ortiz
 * Devika Parikh
 * Courtney Peldon
 * Ben Pronsky
 * Lynwood Robinson
 * Jason Grant Smith
 * Kelly Stables
 * Skip Stellrecht
 * Pepper Sweeney
 * Fred Tatasciore
 * Randall Thom
 * Lisa Wilhoit
 * Matthew Wood
 * Ruth Zalduondo

Popular culture cameos and references
Coming soon!

Music
Most of the soundtrack comes from old songs from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. This was because Phil Lord was so fascinated with nostalgia that he wanted the film to be unique as well. Additionally, The Weeknd made a song called “I Feel It Coming“, with a 80’s nostalgia feel for the movie and was used in the end credits.

Release
The Pixelators premiered at the Regency Village Theater on November 23, 2016 in Los Angeles in an out-of-competition screening. In the United States, it received a wide theatrical release by 20th Century Fox starting on December 9, 2016 in RealD 3D, IMAX 3D, Dolby Cinema, premium large formats, and D-Box. The film was later released in the United Kingdom on December 30, 2016 and in Australia on December 22, 2016. The film was released two months later in China on February 17, 2017.

The film was initially scheduled for release on November 4, 2016, but in March 2015, It was moved forward to December 16, 2016 to avoid competition with DreamWorks Animation's Trolls. In May 2016, The Pixelators was pushed back a week back to December 9, 2016, to avoid competition with Lucasfilm's Rogue One.

The film had its TV broadcast debut on February 22, 2019, airing on FX. The airing achieved over 5.2 million viewers, lifting FX's usual ratings in February.

Marketing
A video game based on the film was released on December 6, 2016 for Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, and published by Activision and developed by Beenox.
 * The film's teaser trailer was released on January 26, 2016, and was later released with Kung Fu Panda 3, Zootopia, The Jungle Book, Captain America: Civil War, The Angry Birds Movie, and X-Men: Apocalypse.
 * The first theatrical trailer was released on June 7, 2016, and was shown with Finding Dory, The BFG, The Secret Life of Pets, Ghostbusters, Ice Age: Collision Course, Pete's Dragon, and Kubo and the Two Strings.
 * The final poster and trailer were released on September 8, 2016 and the trailer was later shown before Puppet Pals 3D, Storks, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life, Trolls, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Moana.
 * TV spots aired between September and December of 2016.

Home media
The Pixelators was released on Digital HD on March 17, 2017, and on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, and DVD on March 28, 2017 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Box office
The Pixelators grossed $248.2 million in the United States and Canada and $344.2 in other countries for a worldwide total of $592.4 million, against a budget of $155 million.

North America
In the United States and Canada, The Pixelators was released alongside Office Christmas Party and the expansions of Miss Sloane and Nocturnal Animals and pre-release tracking suggested the film would open to $55–60 million from 4,054 theaters in its opening weekend. It played in 3,460 3D theaters, 425 IMAX theaters, and 315 premium large format screens. It earned $5.2 million from Thursday night previews. Buoyed by good word of mouth, it earned $22.9 million on its opening day, breaking the record for the biggest opening day for a original Fox Animation film at that time, until it was broken by Cool Spot in 2018. It ended up overperfoming in its opening weekend, grossing $70.2 million, which is the second biggest animated opening in December behind Paradoria ($113.9 million). In its second weekend, the film made $43.6 million, dropping 38%, and finishing second behind newcomer Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($155 million).

Critical response
The Pixelators received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 47% based on 162 reviews and an average rating of 5.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Even though The Pixelators boasts an talented cast and top-notch CG animation, they aren't enough to save the disappointing end result from a muddled story, pop-culture references, and loud and frenetic action that has little replay value." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 46 out of 100 based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter considered the film "very amazing and hilariously well-done." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, saying "An eye-popping and irreverent animated experience from the guys who brought you The Lego Movie... The Pixelators is an fast, fizzy and frenetically entertaining film that proceeds to obliterate with a 2-hour blast of color, noise, ingenuity and fun." Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal criticized the film's story, describing it as "too formulaic." Glenn Kenny of The New York Times gave the film a negative review, writing, "Let's be clear, then: The Pixelators isn't pointless because it's based on video games. It's pointless because it's pointless". Andy Webster of The New York Times called it, "A poor man's Wreck-It Ralph". In his review for TheWrap, Alonso Duralde wrote, "The Pixelators is an awful candy coated, hard shined brick of postmodernism—a mix of pop-culture references, 80s nostalgia, product placements and internet memes".

Sequel and potential spin-off
Coming soon!

Television series
Coming soon!