Dimensions (2019 film)

Dimensions is an 2019 urban fantasy science fiction action film directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman from a screenplay by Phil Lord and Rothman and a story by Lord, produced by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation in association with Movie Land Animation Studios, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, and stars the voices of Chris Pratt, Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, John Mulaney, Kimiko Glenn, Nicolas Cage, Jamie Chung, Bill Hader, T.J. Miller, Danny McBride, Gal Gadot, Josh Gad, Jason Sudeikis, Ryan Potter, Ryan Gosling, Maya Rudolph, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Sarah Silverman and Mark Wahlberg.

It is an international co-production of the United States, United Kingdom, Denmark and Japan. Plans for Gwen and Dan to be developed by Jamie Chung were first revealed in 2015, and officially announced by Bex Taylor-Klaus in the late 2015. Ted, Randy and Pidge joined over the next two years, with Jamie Chung and Steve Carell cast in July 2017. Ted V. Miller and Randy Thom wanted the film to have its own unique style, combining Movie Land Digital Production Services' computer animation pipeline with traditional hand-drawn animation production techniques and computer technology systems. Completing the animation for the film required up to 140 animators, the largest crew ever used by Sony Pictures Animation for a film to date.

Production of the film was first leaked online after the November 2014 hacks of Sony's computers which revealed Amy Pascal in talks with Movie Land Animation Studios for a feature film. It was eventually confirmed in 2016 with the film intended on being in motion-capture combined with photo-realistic computer-animation.

Gwen and Dan had its world premiere at the Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles on May 31, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 7 by Sony Pictures Releasing under the Columbia Pictures label, in RealD 3D, Digital 3D, Dolby Cinema, IMAX, and IMAX 3D. It has grossed over the same thing as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, unlike $375 million worldwide against a $90 million budget. It received praise for its animation, characters, story, voice acting, humor and soundtrack. It won numerous awards, including Best Animated Feature at the 92nd Academy Awards, 47th Annie Awards, and 77th Golden Globe Awards. On November 7, 2017, the sequel film will be in development.

Cast

 * Chris Pratt as Kyle
 * Shameik Moore as Miles Morales / Spider-Man:
 * Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker / Spider-Man:
 * Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy / Spider-Woman: A dimension-displaced counterpart of Gwen Stacy with spider-like abilities, who takes up the alias of "Gwanda" while at Miles' school.
 * John Mulaney as Peter Porker / Spider-Ham: An alternate funny animal version of Spider-Man from an anthropomorphic universe, who was once a spider, bitten by a radioactive pig.
 * Kimiko Glenn as Peni Parker / SP//dr:
 * Nicolas Cage as Peter Parker / Spider-Man Noir:
 * Jamie Chung as Jessica
 * Bill Hader as Flint Lockwood, an inventor.
 * T.J. Miller
 * Danny McBride as Bomb
 * Gal Gadot
 * Josh Gad as Chuck
 * Jason Sudeikis as Red
 * Ryan Potter as Gabriel
 * Ryan Gosling
 * Maya Rudolph as Matilda
 * Bex Taylor-Klaus
 * Sarah Silverman
 * Mark Wahlberg

Development
Movie Land Animation Studios had already begun the process of starting development of movies with budgets of around $320 million. The intellectual property for these films was meant to be supplied by Movie Land Animation Studios among others and included Penguinopolis, Smash of Claws, The Animals in the Attic and Stickman 2: Larry's Adventure had been approaching the original crew from the television series to make a high-profile, animated theatrical feature-length film adaptation and had long wanted to partner with Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation to release the film given the network's extraordinary legacy in the world of animation, including some of the most enduring characters on cable television history.

Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman agreed to make a feature film version of the show with the promise it would be the first of a planned trilogy. During development stages of the film, he and his co-director Joaquim Dos Santos and Stephen Heneveld, and co-writer Conrad Vernon, intended to revisit some of the greatest films of the time, with Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper, Wonder Woman, The Emoji Movie, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and The Animals in the Attic having the core inspirations for the film.

Casting
On April 2019, it was confirmed that Jamie Sparer Roberts are all hired as casting directors for the movie.

Animation and design
As with The Star, Sony Pictures Animation will have the animation produced by another studio other than Sony Pictures Imageworks, which handles digital production for most of SPA's films. For this film, Dimensions will be animated by WarnerMedia's Movie Land Digital Production Services and will also be animated in a combination of motion capture along with photo-realistic computer animation.

The character and hand-drawn animation, special visual effects, computer graphics and stereoscopic 3D conversion were done by WarnerMedia's Movie Land Digital Production Services and was made using Autodesk Maya who had made 2,300 shots for The JH Movie Collection Movie 2: The Second Part. The rendering for the movie was rendered by Pixar RenderMan. The stereoscopic 3D conversion were done by Gener8. The crew used the same processes from the original television series in the making of the film, most notably the 'skroutlines', which was a seamless blend of a more traditional screenplay with a more simple outline which resembled strong short stories and gave the storyboard artists such as Maurice Fontenot, Abigail Nesbitt and Guy Moore all the creative and aesthetic freedom neccessary. Warburton and Willems themselves provided the film's animatics.

It took around a year for two animators to create 10 seconds of footage that reflected the producers's vision; the animation work developed from there. During initial development, the directors worked with a single animator to establish the film's look. This number eventually grew to 60 animators during production. It became clear that this would not be enough to complete the film on time, so the crew was expanded further. The number had reached 142 animators by February 2019 and at one point to 177 animators, the largest animation crew that Movie Land Digital Production Services had ever used for a film. Animation work was completed in April 28, 2019.

The CGI and hand-drawn animation for the film was combined with "line work and painting and dots and all sorts of comic book techniques" to make it look like it was created by hand, which was described as "a living painting". This was achieved by artists taking rendered frames from the CGI animators and working on top of them in 2D, with the goal of making every frame of the film "look like a comic panel". Lord described this style of animation as "totally revolutionary", and explained that the design combines the in-house style of Sony Pictures Animation with the "flavor" of digital artists such as Christopher Arambulo Cosgrove and Chris Lawrence.

The directors all felt that the film would be one of the few that audiences actually "need" to watch in 3D due to the immersive nature of the animated world created, and the way that the hand-drawn animation elements created specifically for the film create a unique experience; Persichetti described this experience as a combination of the effects of an old-fashioned hand-drawn multiplane camera and a modern virtual reality environment.

Pre-production
Pre-production officially began in the United Kingdom by early December 2015. That same month, director Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman stated that the film will be another great love story with a new love interest being cast. The next month, production designer Bill Boes was announced to be designing the film's production designer, as well as Kasia Walicka-Maimone, also making the movie as costume designer.

Music and soundtrack
The score for the movie was composed by Henry Jackman and James Newton Howard, and was mixed and recorded by Alan Meyerson at Remote Control Productions. The film originally had no songs until six months into production when the suggestion of making the film a musical came from Toby Emmerich who was recently elected as chairman of the Sony Pictures Entertainment at the time. The soundtrack will be released digitally on June 7, 2019 during the theatrical release film date and on Compact Disc on June 11, 2019 by Astralwerks and Island Records. A separate album containing Henry Jackman and James Newton Howard's score was released by Sony Classical Records.

Sound
The sound for Dimensions is recorded, designed and edited at Skywalker Sound in Marin County, California with James Likowski supervising the sound editorial, Gary Rydstrom designing and re-recording the sound, Randy Thom supervising the sound designing, and Addison Teague and Alan Meyerson editing the sound to create the final sound mix for the movie.

Technology
PIX System provided the production crew with secure access to production content and project management throughout the suite of devices used.

Release
The movie will be released theatrically on May 3, 2019 in IMAX, RealD 3D, Dolby Cinema and 2D theaters by Sony Pictures Releasing under its Columbia Pictures label. Sony premiered the film at the Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles on May 31, 2019.

Marketing
Very little information about the film's plot and characters were revealed until Sony eventually released a teaser trailer and poster for it on July 4, 2018, with the former using the song "Home" from Nick Jonas to introduce the beginning of the film. Four month later, the film's first full trailer was released in two versions, both offering different content.

On April 1, 2019, Sony published the screenplay online.


 * The teaser trailer was released on July 4, 2018 and was shown before Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Christopher Robin and The Meg
 * The first trailer was released on November 17, 2018 and was shown before Ralph Breaks the Internet, Funimals, Stuart Little, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Sarcastics, Mary Poppins Returns, Bumblebee, Aquaman and Welcome to Marwen
 * The final trailer was released on March 1, 2019 and was shown before The Hampster Movie, Captain Marvel, Wonder Park, Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase, Dumbo, Shazam, Missing Link and Stickman 2: Larry's Adventure

Box office
, Gwen and Dan has grossed $190.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $185 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $375.3 million, against a production budget of $90 million.

On March 2, 2019, the film surpassed Hotel Transylvania 2 to become Sony Pictures Animation's highest grossing film domestically, unadjusted for inflation.

In the United States, Canada, Germany, Japan and Mexico, Dimensions was released on the same day with Pokémon Detective Pikachu, and was projected to gross $30–35 million from 3,813 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $12.6 million on its first day, including $3.5 million from Thursday night previews, and went on to debut to $35.4 million, finishing first at the box office and marking the best-ever December opening for an animated film. The film made $16.7 million in its second weekend, finishing fourth behind newcomers Aquaman, Bumblebee, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Sarcastics and Mary Poppins Returns, and then $18.3 million in its third weekend, finishing fourth again. In its fifth weekend the film made $13 million, finishing in fourth for a third straight week. The weekend following its Best Animated Picture win, the film was added to 1,661 theaters (for a total of 2,104) and made $2.1 million, marking a 138% increase from the week before.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, Dimensions holds an approval rating of 97%, based on 346 reviews, with an average rating of 8.74/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Dimensions matches bold storytelling with striking animation for a purely enjoyable adventure with heart, humor, and plenty of superhero action." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100, based on 50 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare average grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it a 90% overall positive score and an 80% "definite recommend", as well as a rare 5 star rating.

David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film a "B+" and called it "hilarious and ultimately even poignant", writing: "An eye-popping and irreverent animated experience from the marvelous comic minds who brought you 21 Jump Street... Dimensions superhero film in a long time; every single frame oozes with fan service..." Oliver Jones of The New York Observer gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars and wrote, "The greatest triumph and biggest surprise of the film is that it is an LSD freak-out on par with 2001: A Space Odyssey." Johnny Oleksinski of The New York Post gave the film a 3.5 rating out of 4, hailing the film as "the best stand-alone film to feature the iconic character so far", and praising Miles's characterization as "more fleshed out than the usual Marvel heroes". Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that "...the freshest and most stimulating aspect of the film is the visual style, which unites the expected Movie Land mix of 'universes' (it used to be assumed there was only one universe in creation) with animation that looks both computer-driven and hand-drawn, boasts futuristic as well as funky urban elements, moves the 'camera' a lot and brings together a melting pot of mostly amusing new characters."

Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times said that "What distinguishes the both films, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Dimensions in the end is that it takes its mission seriously, even when it's being transparently silly". David Sims of The Atlantic said that the film "somehow, through sheer creative gumption, does something new in the superhero genre", particulary praising the use of comic book's "visual language", as well as the characters' dynamic, and felt that the "anarchic fingerprints" of producers Lord and Miller were "all over the movie". Katie Walsh of Tribune News Service said that the film is "unlike any other superhero or animated film that has come before", comparing the animation to "watching a comic book come to life", and feeling that the film "firmly exists in a post-Deadpool environment, where it seems the only fresh way into a century-old superhero is to skewer the tropes, make fun of the merchandising and acknowledge the cultural significance of it all in a cheeky and self-reflective manner", and that Lord, who wrote the story and co-wrote the screenplay, was "The key to the balance of self-aware and sweet" present in the film.

Industry response
Chris Pratt, who also worked with Lord and Miller in The Lego Movie films, called it an "emotionally moving, cutting edge, progressive, diverse, funny, meta, action-packed, silly, visually stunning masterpiece!" Patton Oswalt, who also worked with Lord and Miller on 22 Jump Street, called the film "brilliant" and continued "... This has been a non-stop year for me and I'm glad I'm ending it in such a cinematic high-note. Not only is it the best superhero film ever made, it's flat-out a game-changing MOVIE. Seeing it again tomorrow!" Kevin Smith reviewed the film on his podcast Fatman Beyond, stating, "I always liked Spider-Man but this movie made me love Spider-Man on a Batman-type level", and continued saying, "It just goes to show you that any character in the right hands can be a transformative experience." Barry Jenkins, writer and director of the Academy Award-winning film Moonlight which also starred Ali, praised the film calling it "magnificent"; citing it as the best animated film, one of the best films of 2018, and the best tentpole film since Edge of Tomorrow. Jenkins continued, saying, "I was stupefied. I mean just tremendous, tremendous work, so grounded and full of verve; visceral. Saw it on the biggest screen I could find, just a viscerally enthralling experience. I salute you." Rian Johnson, writer and director of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, described the film as "the Velvet Underground of superhero movies" as he believes it will be an influential film.

Accolades
Gwen and Dan won Best Animated Feature Film at the 47th Annie Awards, the 76th Golden Globe Awards, the 25th Critics' Choice Awards, the 73rd BAFTA Film Awards, and earned numerous other accolades, including a Best Animated Feature nomination at the 92nd Academy Awards. along with many other awards and nominations. It was also the first Movie Land Animation Studios film to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature as well as the 7th non Disney/Pixar film to win this award. It was also the first non-Disney or Pixar film to win the Academy Awards for Best Feature Film since Pokémon Detective Pikachu.

Sequel
In December 2018, the directors were still focused on completing the film but acknowledged that the introduction of Dimensions in the film could create the potential for many different stories to be told depending on the success of this film. By the end of January, Sony was developing a sequel and a spin-off from the film due to the "incredible buzz" surrounding it. Joaquim Dos Santos and Zack Snyder are set respectively to direct and write the sequel, which would continue their story.