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Milestones and Turning Points in Film History The Year 2012 |
 Timeline of Greatest Film History Milestones and Turning Points (by decade and year) Introduction | Pre-1900s | 1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
| Event and Significance | |
| Pixar's 13th animated feature, the medieval fantasy epic Brave (2012) was the first in the studio's 25 year history to have a female lead character. It was also the studio's first fairy-tale film, and the studio's first period picture. The feisty, red-headed teenaged female star was archery expert and Scottish princess Merida, voiced by Kelly Macdonald. She was the daughter of King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), who sought for her to marry a local suitor, although she resisted and sought assistance from a witch (Julie Walters). | |
| Two bills before Congress, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), were halted. The proposed anti-piracy legislation was designed by supporters in Hollywood (including the Motion Picture Association of America) to crack down on foreign websites that distribute bootleg movies and TV shows, and reportedly cost the entertainment industry billions of dollars annually. A counter-attack was successfully launched by a strong Internet and tech industry lobby with a well-publicized shutdown or "blackout" on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 of key Internet sites, including Wikipedia, Google (which blacked out its logo on its search page) and BoingBoing.net. | |
| The very successful R-rated chick-flick comedy and cultural phenomenon, Paul Feig-directed Bridesmaids (2011) written by Kristen Wiig and produced by Judd Apatow, was one of the primary influential forces to encourage more risque, female-driven comedies and independent films in coming years. | |
| Two of the oldest film studios celebrated their 100th year anniversaries (both were founded in 1912): the oldest (by one month), Paramount Pictures (now owned by media conglomerate Viacom, but founded as Famous Players Studios) and also the last major film studio still headquartered in Hollywood, and Universal Pictures (founded by Carl Laemmle originally, and now controlled by General Electric, the parent of NBC), with production studios in Universal City, CA. | |
| The first in the long-running James Bond series of films, Dr. No (1962), celebrated its 50th year anniversary. As of 2012, 23 official James Bond films had been released, including the latest addition, Skyfall (2012). | |
| Four of the biggest box-office hits ever made were released in 3-D: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999), Titanic (1997), and Finding Nemo (2003). | |
| In early March of 2012, California's Hearst Castle hosted a screening of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941), 71 years after its original release. It was part of the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival. One of Hollywood's most famous behind-the-scenes battles occurred over the making of the film, when William Randolph Hearst banned coverage of the film in his newspapers, and tried to curtail its success. He accused the film of wrongly portraying him as a ruthless, publishing tycoon who died alone in the castle. Steve Hearst, VP of the Hearst Corporation, who allowed the screening, believed that it would highlight the fictional elements in the movie, and "correct the record." Proceeds from the screening raised money for upkeep of the estate's extensive art collection. | |
| 'Found-footage' films became extremely popular, even more than 10 years after the breakthrough The Blair Witch Project (1999) that kick-started the sub-genre, possibly due to the influence of home-made YouTube videos and reality TV. [Actually, one of the earliest "found-footage" films was the controversially banned Cannibal Holocaust (1980, It.) by director Ruggero Deodato.] In 2012, the small-budgeted, profitable, shakily hand-held films without star power included the superhero sci-fi thriller Chronicle (2012), the horror thriller The Devil Inside (2012), and the high school party comedy Project X (2012). Other 'found-footage' video-camcorder films in previous years that were unbelievably successful smash hits included J.J. Abrams' monster film Cloverfield (2008) and director Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity (2009) (and its sequels). | |
| The top debuting Dr. Seuss film was the 3-D animated Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (2012) (at $70.2 million), easily surpassing opening weekend domestic totals for How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) (at $55 million). It was virtually tied as the biggest opening ever for a non-sequel animated film with The Incredibles (2004) (at $70.5 million). | |
| Controversy arose over the ratings to be given to the good-intentioned documentary Bully (2012), a timely and insightful film about the eye-opening social issue of bullying and teen cruelty. The MPAA was accused of being a 'bully' itself for slapping the film with an R-rating (for its use of profanity a half-dozen times - the F-word), thereby effectively making it difficult for teenagers to see the film and be helped and/or affected by it. The harrowing film was thereby released by the Weinstein Company as un-rated, while Weinstein's attorneys painted the MPAA as antiquated, punitive and arbitrary. | |
| The tremendous success of PG-13 rated The Hunger Games (2012) portended that it would become one of the more successful films of all-time, and would blossom into a new series or franchise. The film was based upon the best-selling book by Suzanne Collins. It set a record for the largest opening night box-office revenue for a non-sequel. It also had the third-biggest opening weekend in cinematic history (at $152.5 million (domestic)), just behind the # 1 film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (2011), and # 2 The Dark Knight (2008). | |
| James Cameron's blockbuster epic Titanic (1997) was re-released in 3-D, a conversion that cost $18 million and took 60 weeks of intensive labor. The date of its re-release on April 4th coincided with the 100th anniversary of the real-life sinking of the Titanic, on April 14th in 1912. The story of the ill-fated and tragic journey of the White Star liner was captured on a number of disaster films, including Titanic (1953) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb, and the J. Arthur Rank production of A Night to Remember (1958), based on Walter Lord's best-selling book. Other Titanic-related films included Atlantic (1929), Cavalcade (1933), History is Made at Night (1937), The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964), S.O.S. Titanic (1979) - a made-for-TV movie, the box-office flop Raise the Titanic (1980), bits of Time Bandits (1981) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and the two-part CBS-TV movie Titanic (1996) starring George C. Scott. | |
| Board Game-based movies made a comeback with the blockbuster Battleship (2012), from Comcast Corp.'s Universal Pictures, with a reported production budget of $200 million. The Hasbro toymaker's search-and-destroy game was the first adaptation of a popular naval board game since Clue (1985), which was a major flop. Hollywood proved once again that it was betting on toy-based games, after the success of three Transformers films and the recent G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009). The film industry was relying on a familiar storyline, as it had often done with sequels, prequels, reboots, remakes, and adapted novels or comics. If successful, other future-planned Hasbro-game-adaptations included Universal's Ouija (2013), Sony Corp's Risk and Candy Land, and Relativity's Stretch Armstrong (2014). | |
| Director Peter Jackson's filming of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), the first of two movies that returned to J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy world, was filmed with new technology that used 48 images (or frames) for every second of footage rather than the traditional 24 frames per second rate, thereby enhancing clarity and smoothness for 3-D viewing. | |
| Marvel's superhero tale The Avengers (2012) set an unprecedented $207.4 million for its opening weekend, knocking off the previous all-time weekend record set by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (2011) last summer (at $169.2 million). It also took other all-time honors: the fastest movie ever to reach $100 million, $150 million, and $200 million, and new records for Saturday ($69.6 million) and Sunday ($57.1 million) grosses, and the highest per-theater average ever for a nationwide release with $47,698. |
