Rise of the Guardians

Jack Frost awakens from a frozen pond with amnesia and disappears upon realizing that no one can see or hear him. Three hundred years later, Jack, as the Spirit of Winter, enjoys delivering snow days to schoolchildren, but still feels upset that they do not believe in him. At the North Pole, the Man in the Moon warns Nicholas St. North that Pitch Black is threatening the children of the world with his nightmares. He calls E. Aster Bunnymund/Bunny, the Sandman, and the Tooth Fairy to arms. They are told that Jack Frost has been chosen to be a new Guardian, and Bunny brings him to the North Pole. North explains to Jack that every Guardian has a center, something they are the Guardian of, but a call for help from Tooth's fairies ends the conversation.

Visiting Tooth's world, which resembles a palace in India, Jack learns that each and every baby tooth contains childhood memories of the children who lost it, Jack's teeth included. However, Pitch raids Tooth's home, kidnapping all of her subordinate tooth fairies except Baby Tooth and stealing all the teeth, thus preventing Tooth from sharing Jack's memories and weakening children's belief in her. In order to thwart Pitch's plan, the group decides to collect children's teeth. During their journey, a quarrel between North and Bunny awakens a boy, Jamie. Since he still believes, he can see everybody except for Jack. Pitch's nightmares then attack, provoking Sandy as the Guardian of Dreams. Jack tries to intervene, but Pitch overwhelms Sandy, who seemingly disappears.

As Easter approaches, the dejected Guardians gather in Bunny's home. With the unexpected aid of Jamie's little sister, Sophie, they begin the process of painting eggs for Easter. After Jack takes Sophie home, he is lured to Pitch's lair by a voice. Pitch taunts him with his memories and fear of non-belief, distracting him long enough for Pitch to destroy the eggs, causing children to stop believing in Bunny, who furiously berates Jack. With the Guardians' trust in him lost, a shamed Jack isolates himself in Antarctica, where Pitch tries to convince him to join his side. When Jack refuses, Pitch threatens to kill Baby Tooth unless Jack gives him his staff, the source of his magic. He agrees, but Pitch breaks Jack's staff and throws him down a chasm. Unlocking his memories inside his teeth, he learns that he was a mortal teenager who sacrificed himself to save his younger sister, dying from drowning. Inspired, Jack repairs his staff and returns to the lair to rescue the kidnapped tooth fairies.

Due to Pitch, every child in the world except Jamie disbelieves, drastically weakening the Guardians. Finding Jamie's belief wavering, Jack makes it snow in his room, renewing Jamie's belief and letting him become the first person to ever believe in and see Jack. They gather Jamie's friends, whose renewed belief bolsters their fight against Pitch. He threatens them, but their dreams prove stronger than his nightmares, resulting in Sandy's resurrection and the Guardians reuniting. Defeated and no longer believed in, Pitch tries to retreat, but his nightmares, sensing his own fears, turn on him and drag him to the underworld. Afterwards, Jamie and his friends bid goodbye to the Guardians as Jack accepts his place as the Guardian of Fun.

• Chris Pine as Jack Frost, the Spirit of Winter.[9] Jack is a teenage hellion who enjoys creating mischief and has no interest in being bound by rules or obligations; he just wants to use his staff to spread his winter magic for the sake of fun, but also wants to be believed in. Via his staff, he possesses potent cryokinesis. At the end of the film, Jack became the Guardian of Fun.
• Jude Law as Pitch Black/The Boogeyman, the essence of fear and the Nightmare King. He has dark hair and wears a black robe/cloak. He also has an English accent because of his voice actor. Despite being the literal embodiment of terror, ironically, at the resolution, he's scared of his own nightmares after being forgotten.[9]
• Alec Baldwin as Nicholas St. North, the leader of the Guardians,[9] and the Guardian of Wonder. He lives at the North Pole in the Ice Castle and is served by loyal North Pole natives, the Yetis (who built the castle and workshop) and the Christmas Elves. He has a Russian accent/culture persona.[10]
• Hugh Jackman as E. Aster Bunnymund, called Bunny for short, the keeper and bringer of Easter eggs as the Easter Bunny and Guardian of Hope. He shares his voice actor's Australian accent.[9]
• Isla Fisher as Toothiana, called Tooth for short, the tooth collector known as the Tooth Fairy and the Guardian of Memories.[9] Tooth is part human and part hummingbird, loosely resembling a Kinnari. Assisted by mini fairies that are split-off extensions of herself, she collects the children's teeth, which hold their most precious memories. Tooth stores them in her palace and returns memories when they are needed the most.[11]
• Sandy the Sandman is the Guardian of Dreams and the oldest of the Guardians,[12] being the first Guardian chosen by the Man in the Moon.[13] He doesn't/can't speak, but communicates through sand images that he conjures above his head.[14]
• Dakota Goyo as Jamie Bennett, a child who has not given up on believing in the Guardians.[15]
• Georgie Grieve as Sophie Bennett, Jamie's little sister
• Jacob Bertrand as Monty
• Dominique Grund as Cupcake
• Olivia Mattingly as Mary, Jack's sister
• Ryan Crego as Burgess Dog Walker
• Peter Ramsey and April Lawrence as Burgess Pedestrians

In 2005, William Joyce and Reel FX launched a joint venture, Aimesworth Amusements,[16] to produce CG-animated feature films,[17] one of which was set to be The Guardians of Childhood, based on Joyce's idea.[18] The film was not realized, but they did create a short animated film, The Man in the Moon, directed by Joyce, which introduced the Guardians idea,[18] and served as an inspiration for the film.[3]

Early in 2008, Joyce sold the film rights to DreamWorks Animation,[19] after the studio assured him it would respect his vision for the characters and that he would be involved with the creative process.[20] In November 2009, it was revealed that DreamWorks had hired Peter Ramsey to make his feature debut as director of what was then titled The Guardians, and playwright David Lindsay-Abaire to write the script, Lindsay-Abaire had previously worked with Joyce by co-writing the screenplay for Robots.[21] Joyce acted as a co-director for the first few years, but left this position after the death of his daughter Mary Katherine,[19] who died in May 2010.[20] Joyce continued to work on the film only as an executive producer, while Ramsey took the helm solo as a full time director, making him the first African American to direct a big-budget CG animated film as well as making it one of the first Dreamworks films to have only one director instead of two and not have a co-director.[22] As with some previous DreamWorks films, Guillermo del Toro came on board to join Joyce as an executive producer. Present almost from the beginning,[23] he was able to help shape the story, character design, theme and structure of the film.[24] He said he was proud that the filmmakers were making parts of the film "dark and moody and poetic," and expressed hope this might "set a different tone for family movies, for entertainment movies."[23] The final title, Rise of the Guardians was announced in early 2011, along with the first cast.[9]

Roger Deakins, the cinematographer who had already worked on the previous DreamWorks' film, How to Train Your Dragon, advised on the lighting to achieve its real look. He selected photographic references for color keys, and during the production gave notes on contrast, saturation, depth of field and light intensity.[25] The film contains a lot of special effects, particularly the volumetric particles for depicting Sandman and Pitch.[26] For this, DreamWorks Animation developed OpenVDB, a more efficient tool and format for manipulating and storing volume data, like smoke and other amorphous materials. OpenVDB had been already used on Puss in Boots and Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, and was released in August 2012 for free as an open-source project with a hope to become an industry standard.[27]

Although the film is based on the Joyce's book series, it contains differences from the books. The book series, begun in 2011, explains the origins of the characters, while the film takes place about 300 years after the books, and shows how the characters function in present time. Joyce explained, "Because I don't want people to read the book and then go see the movie and go, 'Oh, I like the book better,' and I also didn't want them to know what happens in the movie. And I also knew that during the progress of film production, a lot of things can change. So I wanted to have a sort of distance, so we were able to invoke the books and use them to help us figure out the world of the movie, but I didn't want them to be openly competitive to each other."[19] The idea for the Guardians came from Joyce's daughter, who asked him "if he thought Santa Claus had ever met the Easter Bunny." The film includes a dedication to her,[20] as well a song, "Still Dream," sung over the end credits.[28]

Originally, the film was set to be released on November 2, 2012, but DreamWorks Animation pushed the film to November 21, 2012 to avoid competition with Pixar's upcoming film Monsters University, which in turn had been pushed to November 2, 2012 to avoid competition with The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2.[29] Monsters University was then pushed to June 21, 2013, with Disney's Wreck-It Ralph taking its place.[30]

French composer Alexandre Desplat composed the original music for the film, which was released on November 13, 2012 by Varèse Sarabande. The score was recorded in London at Abbey Road Studios and Air Studios, and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, with a choral contribution by London Voices. David Lindsay-Abaire wrote the lyrics for the end-credit song, "Still Dream," which was performed by soprano Renée Fleming.[31] Stravinsky's Firebird Suite can also be heard during the scene where North first appears. This film marks the first time that a DreamWorks Animation film has not been composed by Hans Zimmer or a member of his Remote Control Productions family of composers (mainly John Powell, Henry Jackman, Lorne Balfe, Harry Gregson-Williams or his brother Rupert Gregson-Williams).

Rise of the Guardians premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival: Christina Steinberg, producer; Peter Ramsey, director; Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks Animation's CEO; Nancy Bernstein, producer; Bill Damaschke, DreamWorks Animation's Chief Creative Officer

Rise of the Guardians had its premiere on October 10, 2012, at The Mill Valley Film Festival in Mill Valley, California,[2] followed by the international premiere at The International Rome Film Festival on November 13, 2012.[32][33] Under distribution by Paramount Pictures, the film was released on November 21, 2012, in American theaters.[29] Digitally re-mastered into IMAX 3D, it was shown in limited international and domestic IMAX theaters.[34] It was the second film released in the firm Barco's Auro 11.1 3D audio format, after Red Tails.[35] The film was also shown in Dolby Atmos, a surround sound technology introduced in 2012.[36] Rise of the Guardians was the last DreamWorks Animation film distributed by Paramount, as DreamWorks has signed a five-year distribution deal with 20th Century Fox, which started in 2013 with The Croods.[37]

A video game based on the film was released by D3 Publisher on November 20, 2012 in North America,[64] and released on November 23, 2012 in Europe.[65] It allows gamers to lead the Guardians in their battle against Pitch. The game is a 3D beat-em-up, where the player travels through each of the worlds: Burgess, North Pole, Bunnymund Valley, Tooth Palace, and Sandman's Ship, to fight Pitch's army of Nightmares. The player can switch between all five guardians at any time, and freely customize their powers, and they learn new special abilities as they level up. All the game versions support up to 4-player gameplay.[66] It is available on the Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo 3DS.[67]

After the release of the film, the creators of Rise of the Guardians expressed hope that the strong average grade of "A" given to the film by audiences surveyed by CinemaScore and an enthusiastic word-of-mouth would gather support for the "chance to make a sequel or two."[68] Author and co-producer of the series, William Joyce, also mentioned in March 2013 that he was still in talks about a sequel with DreamWorks Animation: "There is something that we are proposing that we hope they will want to do."[69]

• List of Christmas films
• Santa Claus in film

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