F-Zero (2009 film)

Star Fox is a 2004 American computer-animated action-adventure space opera film co-written and directed by Louis Leterrier, based on the 1993 video game of the same name, and 1997's Star Fox 64 by Shigeru Miyamoto, who also served as one of the executive producers. The film features human characters animated using live action motion capture CGI animation. It tells the story of an elite squad of star pilots fighting the evil Andross, a scientist who is invading the Lylat Star System. The team includes Fox Mcloud, Peppy Hare, Slippy Toad, and Falco Lombardi. The film stars Chris Pine, Chris Pratt, Evan Peters, Vincent D'Onofrio, Bill Hader, Carl Weathers, Jack Nicholson, and Hugo Weaving.

DreamWorks Pictures produced the film in association with ImageMovers and Nintendo Animation for Paramount Pictures. Its visual effects and performance capture were done at Sony Pictures Imageworks. The film was made with a production budget of $165–170 million, a record-breaking sum for an animated feature at the time.

Star Fox premiered in Los Angeles on November 21, 2004. It opened in on December 3, 2004, in the United States in 3,858 theaters. It grossed over $48 million in its opening weekend in North America, eventually grossing over $371.9 million worldwide and becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2004. It won favorite movie actor for Chris Pine in 2005 Kids' Choice Awards. It was followed by Star Fox 2 (2007), Star Fox 3 (2010), and Star Fox 4 (2013), with the four films constituting The Star Fox Trilogy.

Plot
Coming soon

Cast

 * Chris Pine as Fox McCloud
 * Chris Pratt as Falco Lombardi
 * Evan Peters as Slippy Toad
 * Vincent D'Onofrio as Peppy Hare
 * Bill Hader as R.O.B. 64
 * Carl Weathers as General Pepper
 * Jack Nicholson as Wolf O'Donnell
 * Ben Mendelsohn as Leon Powalski
 * Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Panther Caroso
 * Justin Roiland as Andrew Oikonny
 * Daniel Craig as James McCloud
 * Hugo Weaving as Andross

Production
The film is loosely based on both Nintendo's 1993 video game, Star Fox and 1997's Star Fox 64 in 1999, and hired Ed Solomon to write a very faithful script. Starkey and MacDonald wanted Louis Leterrier as director because he had helmed the action thriller The Transporter. However, Corey Yuen is a director, while Leterrier was attached as a artistic director to this film, so they instead approached Michael Bay to direct, as they had heard about the positive reception to his project, Armegeddon (1998); they actually saw the film later and decided he was inappropriate. As a result, Star Fox was delayed so as to allow Sonnenfeld to make it his next project after The Transporter.

Pine optioned the game in 2000 with the hopes of playing Fox McCloud. One of the conditions of the sale was that the resulting film not be animated. Leterrier, however, felt that a live-action version was unfeasible, claiming that it "would look awful, and it would be impossible – it would cost $1 billion instead of $160 million." Leterrier felt that such a version would rob the audience of the art style of the book which he felt was "so much a part of the emotion of the story". The two acquired the rights to the book the following year. In order to keep his vision a new process was created by which actors would be filmed with motion capturing equipment in a black box stage which would then be animated to make the resulting film. Pine stated that this method of working was "actually a return to a type of acting that acting in films does not allow you to do", comparing the process to performing a play in the round.

Writing
After Paramount acquired the film rights from Universal, Rick Carter began writing the screenplay. His task was to explain the premise of a video game series that few had seen without boring new viewers or longtime fans. Carter's original script was 190 pages, and attempted to address all major plot points introduced in the series. After presenting the script to Steve Starkey, Carter and Starkey collaborated on cutting down the script to a size film-able under his budget constraints. The tightened script and a budget Starkey and Carter prepared were submitted to Paramount on a Friday and on the following Monday morning, Jonathan Dolgen called Carter to officially greenlight the movie. In March 2000, just three months before the start of principal photography, Carter finally completed his rough draft for the film. Carter continued to iterate on his rough draft, producing a proper first and second draft. For help with the third draft, which would later become the shooting script, Carter brought on Jon Hoeber, but had limited experience writing theatrical films. The final script was completed just one week before the start of principal photography.

Paramount planned to begin shooting in October 2002, but delays in finishing the script postponed the start of shooting to January 2003.

Filming
Principal photography of the motion-captures sequences began on January 18, 2003, and wrapped on February 18, 2004.

Marketing
The first teaser trailer was shown at screenings of Catch That Kid on February 6, 2004. The next trailer then premiered on May 16, 2004 during Malcom in the Middle and in theaters with the release of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban two weeks after on June 4.

Theatrical
Paramount Pictures held the world premiere for Star Fox in Los Angeles on November 22, 2004. The film opened on December 3, 2004, in the United States and Canada in 3,858 theaters, including 55 IMAX theaters.

Home media
Star Fox was initially released on DVD and VHS on April 5, 2005 in United States, in the UK on April 1, and in Australia on March 25. While the VHS release sold over 6.5 million copies, the DVD release went on to become one of the best-selling live-action DVD titles of all time with over 19.5 million copies being sold. This two-disc DVD release comes in widescreen (1.85:1 aspect ratio) and fullscreen (specifically reframed 1.33:1 aspect ratio digitally mastered from the original source and specially reframed by the filmmakers themselves without gutting out portions of the frame using pan and scan) versions. The film made its Blu-ray debut on June 17, 2008. Just two years later, it was released on Blu-ray on June 29, 2010 as part of the Star Fox Double Feature. Star Fox was also included in the Star Fox Legacy Collection, which includes 5 Star Fox films in a 4K UHD Blu-ray collection, which was released on May 8, 2018.

Reception
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Sequels
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Transcripts
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