Megamind

Megamind is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated superhero comedy film directed by Tom McGrath, produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film premiered on October 28, 2010, in Russia, while it was released in the United States in Digital 3D, IMAX 3D and 2D on November 5, 2010. It features the voices of Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, David Cross, and Brad Pitt.

The film tells the story of a super-intelligent alien supervillain, Megamind, who after a long-lasting battle one day actually destroys his foe, the much-loved superhero Metro Man. Having Metro City for himself, Megamind finds out that his villainy has no purpose and thus creates a new superhero to serve as his nemesis. His plan backfires, as he ends up creating instead a new super-villain. With Metro City spiraling out of control, Megamind attempts to set things right and discovers his newfound purpose—as a superhero.

Megamind received generally positive reviews from critics, praising its strong visuals and the cast's performances, but criticizing its unoriginality. With a budget of $130 million, the film grossed over $321 million worldwide, becoming one of DreamWorks Animation's lowest-grossing CG animated films of the 2000s.

A short film, titled Megamind: The Button of Doom, was released on February 25, 2011, on the Megamind DVD and Blu-ray.

Plot
Ever since they arrived on Earth as infants, supervillain Megamind has fought superhero Metro Man for dominance of Metro City. In his latest plan, Megamind and his sidekick Minion kidnap reporter Roxanne Ritchi and hold her hostage in a copper-lined observatory. When Metro Man arrives to save her, he reveals he is weakened by copper, and Megamind obliterates him with a death ray. Megamind finally takes control of the city, but his celebration is short-lived as without Metro Man to challenge him, he finds his life has no meaning.

While wandering the recently opened Metro Man Museum, Megamind sees Roxanne nearby, and uses his holographic disguise watch to take the form of Bernard, the museum's curator, whom he had "dehydrated" into a small cube. He talks to Roxanne and becomes attracted to her, and is inspired by one of her statements to create a new superhero for him to fight. Megamind returns to his lair and creates a serum containing Metro Man's DNA which he plans to inject into a proper candidate with his Defuser Gun. However, Roxanne's arrival at his lair with her dimwitted cameraman Hal Stewart causes Megamind to inadvertently inject Hal with the serum. Megamind disguises himself as Hal's "Space Dad" and convinces him to become the superhero "Titan". Titan spends several days training with his Space Dad before issuing a challenge to fight Megamind.

On the day before the fight, Megamind gets into an argument with Minion about giving up villainy for Roxanne, while Titan tries and fails to woo her. Megamind, disguised as Bernard, takes Roxanne on a dinner date. Titan sees them, and as he had been infatuated with Roxanne, becomes upset and leaves. Shortly thereafter, Megamind's disguise fails, revealing his identity to Roxanne, who also storms off. The situation leaves him unable to find his invisible car, which is where he left the Defuser Gun he used to inject the serum into Hal.

Titan does not arrive at the scheduled fight, and Megamind finds that he has used his abilities for criminal purposes. As "Space Dad" and "Bernard" Megamind successfully convinces Titan to fight him as Titan realizes Megamind has used him and "taken" Roxanne from him. Titan engages in a super-powered fight with Megamind and his mechs hit. However, when Titan decides to kill him instead of arrest him, Megamind lures Titan into a copper-lined trap, but he is unaffected and continues to fight. Megamind escapes from the battle and seeks out Roxanne, hoping she can help. She offers to take him to Metro Man's secret headquarters, where they are both surprised to find Metro Man alive. Metro Man reveals he faked his death and weakness to copper, as he had become tired of being a superhero and wanted to retire to become a music star. He declines to help, but offers Megamind the advice that a hero will always rise up to challenge evil.

Returning to the city, Megamind does not believe he can become the hero the city needs, and allows himself to be locked up in prison. Titan kidnaps Roxanne and demands Megamind show himself or else. Megamind has a change of heart and pleads with the prison warden, apologizing for his past actions. The warden reveals himself to be Minion in disguise, accepting Megamind's apology, and frees him so they can fight Hal.

As Hal is about to kill Roxanne, Megamind appears and frees her. The two escape, but Hal traps Megamind under rubble when Metro Man suddenly arrives, and Hal flees. Roxanne discovers that "Megamind" is really an injured Minion in disguise, while "Metro Man" is Megamind. Hal, in his flight, recognizes Megamind's distinctive mispronunciations, and realizes he was duped. Hal flies back and fights Megamind, during which Megamind finds his invisible car. He grabs the Defuser Gun and is able to extract the Metro Man serum from Titan, restoring him to normal. Hal is arrested for his crimes. Now hailed as heroes, Megamind and Minion appear at the reopening of Metro Man's museum, now dedicated to Megamind instead, while Metro Man, in disguise within the crowd, silently congratulates his former rival.

In a mid-credits scene Minion is doing the laundry when a re-hydrated Bernard pops out of the washing machine.

Voice cast

 * Will Ferrell as Megamind, an extraterrestrial mastermind who turns from supervillain to superhero. He is a spoof of Lex Luthor and Brainiac, while his "Space Dad" persona is a parody of both Jor-El as played by Marlon Brando in the 1978 film Superman and Brando's performance as Vito Corleone in The Godfather. The DVD commentary notes that his costume and showmanship are purposely evocative of Alice Cooper.
 * Tina Fey as Roxanne "Roxie" Ritchi, a TV news reporter who becomes Megamind's love interest. She is a spoof of Lois Lane.
 * Jonah Hill as Hal Stewart/Titan, Roxanne Ritchi's hapless, dimwitted but nerdy cameraman who has unrequited feelings for her. His motivation throughout the film is to get her back to his apartment with him. He later becomes a villain named Titan (he misspells "Tighten"). The name Hal Stewart refers to Hal Jordan and John Stewart of the Green Lantern Corps.
 * David Cross as Minion, a sapient talking fish who has been Megamind's sidekick and best friend since childhood. His costume is evocative of Ro-Man from Robot Monster.
 * Brad Pitt as Metro Man, Megamind's former nemesis. He is a spoof of Superman. The DVD commentary notes that his costume and showmanship are purposely evocative of the late Elvis Presley.
 * J. K. Simmons as the Warden, the no-nonsense head of Metro City Prison.
 * Ben Stiller as Bernard, a museum curator whom Megamind impersonates to win Roxanne's affections.
 * Christopher Knights as a prison guard.
 * Tom McGrath as Lord Scott and a prison guard.
 * Jack Blessing as Newscaster.
 * Justin Theroux as Megamind's father.
 * Jessica Schulte as Megamind's mother.

Production
The film was written by Alan J. Schoolcraft and Brent Simons. It was first titled Master Mind, and then Oobermind. It was suggested that Ben Stiller would be cast as Megamind, and later Robert Downey, Jr. but Will Ferrell was ultimately given the role, due to "scheduling conflicts" for Downey. Lara Breay and Denise Nolan Cascino were the film's producers, and Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld were the executive producers. Justin Theroux and Guillermo del Toro worked as creative consultants on the film. Del Toro only came onboard three weeks before the end of production, but went on to have a more substantial role in subsequent DreamWorks Animation films. The opening of the film, where Megamind is falling to his apparent death, was del Toro's idea.

Music
Megamind: Music from the Motion Picture is a soundtrack to the film of the same name, composed by Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe, and released on November 2, 2010 by Lakeshore Records.

Release
Megamind premiered on October 28, 2010, in Russia, and was theatrically released in the United States on November 5, 2010. It was supposed to be released in Japan on March 12, 2011, but because of the earthquake and tsunami a day before, the Japanese release was cancelled.

Marketing
Megamind was promoted at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International, with Tom McGrath, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, and Will Ferrell, who was dressed as Megamind.

Home media
Megamind was released on both Blu-ray Disc and DVD on February 25, 2011, accompanied with an all-new short titled Megamind: The Button of Doom. The Button of Doom also had its television premiere on Nick, which was aired on February 26, 2011. It was the seventh-best-selling DVD of 2011 with over 3 million units sold. The film made a total of $75 million in DVD and Blu-ray sales.

The film was released on Blu-ray 3D in March 2011 exclusively as a part of Samsung 3D Starter Kits, and on September 11, 2011, exclusively at Best Buy stores.

In July 2014, the film's distribution rights were purchased by DreamWorks Animation from Paramount Pictures and transferred to 20th Century Fox, the rights are now owned by Universal Pictures.

Box office
Megamind opened to $12.5 million on opening day, and earned $46 million over the three-day weekend, taking the No. 1 spot and averaged $11,668 from around 7,300 screens at 3,944 theaters. The opening was a bit higher than How to Train Your Dragon, which earned $43.7 million back in March 2010. It was the fifth-highest opening for an animated feature in 2010. In its second weekend, it repeated at No. 1 and dropped 37% to $29.1 million for a $7,374 average from 3,949 theaters, and bringing its 10-day cumulative total to $88.8 million. On its third weekend, it fell 45% to $16 million and finished second to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, averaging $4,237 from 3,779 theaters. Over Thanksgiving weekend, it held well with just a 22% drop to $12.6 million and slid to third place behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Tangled (it earned $17,304,307 over the five-day Thanksgiving period). Following Thanksgiving, the film fell a sharp 61% in its fifth weekend to $4.9 million and finished in sixth place.

The film closed in theaters on February 24, 2011 (a day before it was released on DVD and Blu-ray), earning $148.4 million in North America, and $173.5 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $321.9 million. The final gross was on the low end for a DreamWorks Animation film, but was still a box office success since it beat its $130 million budget. It is the sixth-highest-grossing animated film from 2010 worldwide, behind Toy Story 3 ($1.063 billion), Shrek Forever After ($753 million), Tangled ($591 million), Despicable Me ($543 million), and How to Train Your Dragon ($494 million), the highest-grossing film worldwide in both Ferrell and Fey's careers, as well as the fourth-highest-grossing superhero comedy film, behind Incredibles 2, The Incredibles and Big Hero 6.

Critical response
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives a score of 72% based on 176 reviews and an average rating of 6.6 out of 10. The site's consensus states the film "regurgitates plot points from earlier animated efforts, and isn't quite as funny as it should be, but a top-shelf voice cast and strong visuals help make Megamind a pleasant, if unspectacular, diversion." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 63 based on 33 reviews. Audiences polled by Cinemascore gave Megamind a grade of "A-" on a scale from A+ to F-.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film three out of four stars, stating "This set-up is bright and amusing, even if it does feel recycled from bits and pieces of such recent animated landmarks as The Incredibles with its superpowers and Despicable Me with its villain." Stephen Holden, of The New York Times, positively wrote in his review, "Visually Megamind is immaculately sleek and gracefully enhanced by 3-D." Entertainment Weekly reviewer Owen Gleiberman graded the film a B+ and wrote, "...too goofy-surreal to pack a lot of emotional punch, but it's antically light on its feet, with 3-D images that have a lustrous, gizmo-mad sci-fi clarity." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone commented, "What this raucous 3D animated fun house lacks in originality (think bastard child of The Incredibles and Despicable Me) it makes up for in visual and vocal wit." In a mixed review, Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Just as Megamind struggles to find his center, at times, so does the film."

The main point of criticism was the unoriginality of the film. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune wrote: "You have seen all this before", while Justin Chang of Variety said: "Though enlivened by some moderately clever twists on the superhero-movie template, Megamind never shakes off a feeling of been-there-spoofed-that." Claudia Puig of USA Today even asked: "Do we really need Megamind when Despicable Me is around?".

Video games
Several video game tie-ins published by THQ were released on November 2, 2010 to coincide with the film's release. An Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 version is titled Megamind: Ultimate Showdown, while the Wii version is titled Megamind: Mega Team Unite and the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS versions are both titled Megamind: The Blue Defender. All three versions of the game have been rated E10+ for fantasy violence by the ESRB.

Comic books
DreamWorks Animation and WildStorm produced a 32-page full-color comic book titled The Reign of Megamind, which was released in July 2010 exclusively at the Comic-Con convention. Full version of the comic is also available on the Megamind website.

Ape Entertainment released under its Kizoic label five full colour comic books based on the film. A 52-page prequel titled "MEGAMIND: Reign of Megamind" was released in October 2010. It features two stories titled "The Reign of Megamind" and "MINION 2.0". The stories show Megamind and Minion's biggest failures in their attempt to defeat Metro Man. In 2010 and 2011 followed a mini series of four 32-page books. The comic book #1 features story titled "Can I Have This Dance", #2 features "Bad Minion! Bad!", #3 features "Megamutt" and #4 features "A Sidekick's Sidekick".

Possible sequel
In April 2011, DreamWorks Animation's CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, commented that the studio did not have plans to produce future movie genre parodies like Shark Tale, Monsters vs. Aliens, and Megamind, saying that these films "all shared an approach and tone and idea of parody, and did not travel well internationally. We don't have anything like that coming on our schedule now."