Timeline of Influential Milestones and Turning Points in Film History

Timeline of Influential Milestones and Important Turning Points in Film History

2000s

Herein is a detailed timeline of the key film milestones, important turning points, and significant historical dates or events (organized by decade) that have had a significant influence on the world body of cinema and shaped its development. For more detailed accounts of many items, also see this site's extensive narratives on Film History by Decade, Film Milestones in Visual and Special Effects, and a comprehensive History of the Academy Awards.

Index to Timeline of Greatest Film Milestones and Turning Points

(by decade)

Pre-1900s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s
1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

2000s - Part 2

Year	Event and Significance
2005	The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 was introduced to Congress, designed to make technology available (legal filtering devices, such as DVD players provided by the ClearPlay company) to parents that will help shield children from unwanted violence, sex and profanity in movies. This bill made it legal to alter (or sanitize) a motion picture to edit out audio and video content that may not suit minors (i.e., CleanFlicks rents out edited DVDs). In addition, file sharing and movie piracy (i.e., camcordering films in theaters, pre-releasing pirated copies of copyrighted films, etc.) would be penalized. The Family Movie Act provision, championed by US Representative Lamar Smith (Rep., Texas), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee's Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee, provided an exemption from copyright and trademark law for skipping and muting content in a motion picture at the direction of a viewer, or the use of technology to accomplish the same result. The debate over censorship vs. artistic freedom intensified. The Hollywood film industry, film studios, and the Directors Guild want piracy protection, but say that "private content filtering" — editing out foul language and objectionable scenes — is unabashed censorship.
2005	The last feature-length Star Wars film in the franchise, Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, was released, and eventually made approximately $380 million. Its four-day opening take was a record $158.4 million. It was the first of the films to receive a PG-13 rating, and was considered too grim, dark, and intense for young fans. Filmmaker George Lucas was criticized for merchandising toys and other related products to younger consumers, while denying them the ability to see the film. The first five Star Wars films made a staggering $9 billion in merchandise sales -- triple the franchise's box-office sales (of $3.4 billion). Regarding Episodes I-III, critics denounced the Jar Jar Binks digital character and the poor acting, but the films were universally praised for their digital film-making and special effects.
2005	Summer box-office was grim for Hollywood - the lowest since 2001, and overall ticket sales (the average ticket price was estimated to be $6.40) and attendance totals were both down from the previous year. Many factors were blamed: the rise in home theater sales, increasing gas-pump prices, a greater decrease in time between a film's theatrical release and the sale of the DVD version, etc. It was suggested that the industry make better films, provide discounted tickets, make cheaper films (i.e., The March of the Penguins (2005) cost $8 million to make and earned almost $78 million - the second-highest gross for a non-IMAX documentary, and the 3rd highest doc ever), and eliminate various annoyances in movie theatres (i.e., commercials, use of cellphones, sticky environments, etc.).
2005	Michael Eisner's 21-year reign as Disney's CEO came to an end, as he was replaced by company president Robert Iger. Part of the reason for his step-down was due to controversy over his mis-steps in the last few years, including public feuds with other Disney executives or board members, low ratings for ABC-TV, bad decision making, poor box-office results, and other theme park-related failings.
2005	More evidence surfaced that Hollywood and the computer/video games industry were moving closer together. Steven Spielberg, a gamer himself, agreed to develop (and executive produce) three original games for Electronic Arts (Los Angeles branch). Computer games already were showing comparable income to the movie industry, i.e., the game Halo 2 for the XBox console system sold 2.4 million units in its first 24 hours of sales and made $125 million in gross receipts - in addition, Microsoft was in negotiations with Universal and Fox to turn the game into a movie. In comparison, the all-time record for a film's opening weekend to that point belonged to Spider-Man 2 (2004), which grossed almost $116 million (in July, 2004). Close behind were Shrek 2 (2004) that earned $108 million during its opening weekend (in May, 2004), and Pixar's The Incredibles which drew a $70.5 million gross in its opening weekend (in November, 2004).
2005	DreamWorks' and Rob Marshall's Memoirs of a Geisha (adapted from a novel by Arthur Golden), a film set in 1930s and 1940s Japan, was the first big-budget Hollywood film with Asian actors in every leading role. However, the film-makers received criticism regarding the casting decisions, since three of the major actresses were not Japanese but Chinese (and Malaysian). The producers and director argued in response that the casting took into account star power, acting ability, and physical traits - and the ability to speak English.
2005	Paramount acquired the 11-year-old DreamWorks studio (founded in 1994 by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen) for approximately $1.6 billion. The stand-alone studio's demise marked the end of a Hollywood era, although it had reached a creative peak in 1998-2001 when its most popular and critically-successful films were released, including Saving Private Ryan (1998), American Beauty (1999), Gladiator (2000), and Shrek (2001).
2005	The year ended with studio executives worried about the overall slump in the industry, despite some bright spots throughout the year -- every Hollywood studio could claim at least one $100 million picture. Revenues were down over 5% from the previous year (the largest year-to-year decline since 1985), and attendance dropped more than 7% (the lowest figure since 1997). And it was the first year in almost a decade in which only 17 films made over $100 million. Weekend box-office gross results beginning in late February slid for a record 19 weeks in a row, when compared to the corresponding period in 2004.
2005	Wedding Crashers, which earned over $209 million, surpassed There's Something About Mary (1998) as the top R-rated comedy in two decades. However, 2005 was predominantly characterized by PG-13 films, which placed 14 of their type in the top 25 moneymakers. PG-13 films accounted for 85% of movie theatre attendance in 2005. There were only two G-rated films and three R-rated films in the top 25 of 2005. The number of PG-13 films has outnumbered the number of PG films ever since the mid-1990s. Many of these PG-13 films would have been rated R in as little as five years earlier, due to what has been termed 'ratings creep'.
2005	In the fall, there were three mega-blockbusters that rescued Hollywood from a dismal financial year: they were Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ($290 million), The Chronicles of Narnia ($292 million), and King Kong ($218 million).
2005	There was a significant commercial trend in the film industry to release 'unrated' versions of R-rated and PG 13-rated films on DVD and videocassette, often with additional racy content that would have undoubtedly changed the original MPAA ratings of these films.
2005	Director/actor George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck, was released. It was a B/W biopic about legendary radio and CBS television news reporter Edward R. Murrow, focusing on his challenging attack in the mid 50s on red-baiting Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and McCarthyism.
2005	Independent films made outside the Hollywood system faced an uphill battle this year. This was the first year since 1995 that every $100 million hit came from a major studio.
2005	The world record for the longest on-screen kiss, with an uninterrupted kiss, was surpassed in the film Kids in America. At the beginning of the end credits, film-obsessed student Holden Donovan (Gregory Smith) told his girlfriend Charlotte Pratt (Stephanie Sherrin) that he wanted to recreate the 3-minute and 5-second screen kiss from the film You're in the Army Now (1941) between Jane Wyman and Regis Toomey, the previous record-holder. Charlotte responded positively to meet his "challenge" and "rewrite a little bit of film history" - she removed Holden's glasses and began the 6-minute kiss with the command: "ACTION," to the tune of Brother Love's "Summertime".
2005	Horror films became one of the most lucrative genre franchises, due to the fact that they could be cheaply made, and were capable of attracting large audiences. For example, Saw (2004), Hostel (2005), and Saw II (2005) did tremendous box-office business, compared to their budget costs.
2006	The first 9/11 related feature film from Hollywood, on the 5th year anniversary, was released in April. It was Paul Greengrass' and Universal's real-time drama United 93. It was one of filmdom's quickest responses to a disaster, compared to the 7-year gap between the start of the Vietnam War and the release of The Green Berets (1968), the 7 to 9-year gap between the first reported AIDS death and the release of the comedy Casual Sex? (1988) - the first studio film mentioning the risks of AIDS (from having casual sex) and Longtime Companion (1990), the 8-year gap between the first Persian Gulf War and the release of Three Kings (1999), the 9-year gap between Princess Diana's tragic death in 1997 and the controversy surrounding it regarding the British royal family in The Queen (2006), and the 10-year gap between the beginning of Rwandan intertribal genocide and the release of Hotel Rwanda (2004). Another 9/11 related film was Paramount's and Oliver Stone's World Trade Center that opened in late summer, and told the story of two Port Authority cops (Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena) who were among the last rescue workers to be pulled from the rubble.
2006	The Walt Disney Co. bought longtime partner Pixar Animation Studios Inc. for $7.4 billion in stock, after a twelve year relationship in which Disney co-financed and distributed Pixar’s animated films and split the profits (their previous deal would expire in June 2006 after Pixar delivered Cars (2006)).
2006	During the awards' season leading up to the Oscars in early March of 2006, director Ang Lee's western cowboy love story Brokeback Mountain (2005) became the most honored movie in cinematic history, noted for its oft-quoted line: "I wish I knew how to quit you" - referred to its gay-themed content. After an intense publicity campaign, it was regarded as a groundbreaking 'gay' love story of two cowboys that was reaching mainstream audiences and changing the way Hollywood would forever portray gay characters - it also raised consciousness about gay rights. Before the Oscar awards, it also had more Best Picture and Director wins than previous Oscar winners Schindler's List (1993) and Titanic (1997) combined. Just to name a few, Brokeback won various awards at the Golden Globes, the British Academy (BAFTA), the Producers, Directors and Screen Actors Guilds, the Writers Guild of America, the NY Film Critic's Circle, the LA Film Critics Association, the National Board of Review, and the Independent Spirit Awards. Its eight Academy Award nominations resulted in three Oscar wins: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Director.
2006	Al Gore's film about global warming titled An Inconvenient Truth grossed $23.8 million - setting a record as the third-highest grossing non-IMAX/concert documentary ever made.
2006	Electronic Arts released The Godfather: The Game, a licensed, mature-rated action/adventure video game inspired by the all-time classic Francis Ford Coppola cinematic masterpiece The Godfather (1972), in which the game-player takes the role of a young man just entering the Corleone family who must work his way to the top, in the world of 1940s New York City. Much of the character likenesses and dialogue from the film were transferred to the game, so all of the lead characters were "voiced" by the actors from the film (except for Al Pacino's voice as Michael Corleone), including a now-deceased Marlon Brando in the role of Don Vito Corleone. Electronic Arts obtained the video game rights to The Godfather from Paramount, which owned the rights to the film property. The game received positive reviews, despite director Coppola's disdain for the game on principle upon its announcement before production in early 2005.
2006	Sony's new James Bond star -- Daniel Craig, appeared in the franchise's highly-successful 21st film (directed by Martin Campbell), titled Casino Royale -- the title of the first Bond book that Ian Fleming wrote. Craig's appearance marked a resurgence or rebirth for the long-running franchise. Another new star, Brandon Routh, a 'new' Superman character, starred in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns (2006).
2006	Director Bryan Singer's and Warners' Superman Returns (2006) became the world's first live-action Hollywood feature with selected sequences (about 20 minutes) converted from 2D to IMAX 3D. With a rumored $400M budget (and only $200M in domestic returns), it became one of the biggest budgeted flops despite positive reviews and audience reaction. Part of the blockbuster's massive budget was because of the many red-lighted Superman Returns projects with many different scripts, directors and stars (Kevin Smith, Nicolas Cage), etc.
2006	70% of teens said that they get their information about sex from the media - mostly from films.
2006	The Disney Channel's TV movie High School Musical was their most successful original movie ever produced. The film's soundtrack was the best-selling album in the United States for the year. The plot combined elements of Grease and Romeo and Juliet in its tale of two high school junior sweethearts (portrayed by Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens) who first met during vacation. They were brought together again when they both won lead parts in the high school musical, but trouble brewed since they were from rival cliques.
2006	John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus was screened both at the Cannes Film Festival, and at the Toronto International Film Festival - where it was the "most explicit" or sexually-graphic film ever screened; it also had the widest release of any film showing unsimulated sex. It was screened in theaters nationwide, including mainstream cinemas and multiplexes in malls.
2006	Over 100 million videos were viewed each day on YouTube, many of which were short clips from copyrighted films.
2006-2007	These years promised to offer more franchise film sequels (some still being titled) - a lucrative part of a studio's business (when coupled with theatrical revenues, DVD sales, and cross-promotions), such as Mission: Impossible III (2006) (the third film in the series since 1996), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) (originally titled X3, the third film in the series since 2000), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) (the third film in the series since 2001), Batman 6 (2006) (the sixth non-animated feature film since 1989), and Superman Returns (2006) (the fifth film in the series since 1978). 2007 franchise releases included: Spider-Man 3 (2007) (the third film in the series since 2002), Shrek 3 (2007) (the third film in the series since 2001), The Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End (2007) (the third film in the series since 2003), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) (the fifth film in the series since 2001), the third film in the 'Bourne' trilogy - The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) (the first two were released in 2002 and 2004), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2007) (the second in the 7-part Narnia series that began in 2005), Ocean's Thirteen (2007), etc.
2006	The third film in the series, Mission: Impossible III failed to be the action-thriller blockbuster that it was destined to be - it had a $47.7 million opening weekend at U.S. theaters, below the $65 million to $70 million that had been projected by some box office trackers. Speculation arose that this was, in part, due to cocky mega-star Tom Cruise's erratic behavior and off-screen public relations disasters, evidenced on NBC's Today Show with Matt Lauer, and the couch-jumping incident on the Oprah Winfrey Show. His strident Scientology advocacy and his denouncements in May 2005 against Brooke Shields regarding her use of anti-depressants for post-partum depression were also the focus of criticisms. At one time, 44 year-old Cruise was the industry's most successful and best-paid actor, but in August was dropped by parent company Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone and by his film studio, Paramount Pictures for his "unacceptable conduct" - after a 14 year production pact.
2006	In response to strong demand, LucasFilms finally released the long-awaited release of the unedited, uncut, and original theatrical versions of the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD (sold for the first-time as stand-alone films).
2006	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) broke many records with new benchmarks - it had the largest opening weekend (of three days) ever at $135.6M, surpassing the previous all-time record holders: Spider-Man (2002) which took in $114.8 million in its first weekend, and Spider-Man 2 (2004) which took in $115.8 million in its opening weekend. Dead Man's Chest also took in $55.8 million on its first day (Friday) to beat the previous single-day record of $50 million, set the previous year by Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith (2005). With $44.7 million on its second day (Saturday), Dead Man's Chest also became the first movie to top $100 million in just two days. It also reached $200M and $300M in grosses faster than any film in history (8 and 16 days respectively). And on August 20, it became the seventh film ever to cross $400M at the domestic box office. Spectacularly, it was only the third movie in history to hit the billion dollar mark worldwide (at $1,065,300,000).
2006	The biggest box-office films of the years were in several basic categories: CGI animations (Cars, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Over the Hedge, and Happy Feet - another penguin film), comedy films often featuring marquee comedians (Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, The Break-Up, Talladega Nights, The Devil Wears Prada, and Click), films based on international franchises (Casino Royale, The Da Vinci Code), and a few remarkable sequels (X-Men: The Last Stand, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and Superman Returns). By the end of the year, Hollywood grossed $9.1 billion domestically (up 3% over the previous year), and $14.6 billion worldwide (up 11% over the previous year).
2006	Signaling a future trend, both Apple and Amazon began offering full-length, on-demand movies on their websites.
2007	Hollywood experienced its first-ever $4 billion (North American box-office) summer -- six of the top 10 releases in the summer were sequels: Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Bourne Ultimatum and Live Free or Die Hard.
2007	Director Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 set the record for the biggest domestic opening weekend in box-office history, at $151.1 million. The film also had the biggest opening-day, 24-hour gross of all time, at $59.8 million. The film went on to top the year's box-office at $336.5 million.
2007	Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End opened at 4,362 theaters on its opening weekend - an all-time record.
2007	Beowulf, a Robert Zemeckis-directed film that was an adaptation of the Old English epic poem, used advanced motion-capture technology to transform live action into digital animation. This technique was first used in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) for the character of Gollum, and in Zemeckis' own The Polar Express (2004). The film, made with a mega-budget of $150 million, was released simultaneously in standard 2-D and non-Imax 3D versions -- with the biggest 3-D rollout of any film in history. It opened on almost 1,000 digital 3-D screens and in 90 IMAX theaters.
2007	From Russia With Love (1963, UK) became the first James Bond film to be broadcast on BBC-TV.
2007	The low-budget teen comedy Superbad topped the US box-office charts with a $33 million opening weekend take, and went on to become the highest domestic grossing high school comedy of all time.
2007	Director Adam Rifkin's fictional feature film titled Look, with interweaving story-lines, was the first U.S. mainstream movie to depict events solely through the "eyes" and point-of-view of surveillance devices and video cameras (including ATM cameras and robot security cameras) found in shopping malls, dressing rooms, school parking lots, ATM machines, grocery stores, police cars, elevators, offices, storage rooms and on cell phones.
2007	The MPAA, formed in 1922, had long warred with filmmakers and studios over the content of films and its voluntary ratings system. Everything came to head with director/producer Kirby Dick's documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006), which demonstrated how difficult it was to learn who served on the MPAA board and how it made ratings decisions. A film's rating could often seriously impact a film's success, and often dictated that a filmmaker's vision had to be edited or revised in order to avoid an NC-17 rating. The MPAA met with independent filmmakers and studio executives at the Sundance Film Festival, and discussed changes and revisions that the organization intended to make - for example, make ratings rules and regulations public, describe the standards for each rating and the appeals process, reveal more about the board's members, and allow a filmmaker to cite scenes in another film when appealing a harsh rating.
2007-2008	The Writer's Guild of America (WGA) went on strike in early November after a stalemate in negotiations occurred with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Issues included increased compensation for the film and TV writers for DVD residuals and compensation for "new media" distribution (content distributed through emerging digital technologies, such as the Internet, including downloads, streaming, smart phones, and video on demand, etc.). When the 3-month strike ended in mid-February 2008, it was estimated that it resulted in a total loss of $2.5 billion show-business.
2008	As a result of the Disney's Channel wildly popular and wholesome telepic High School Musical (2006) that was popular with a new demographic of 'tweens' or 'tweenagers' (early teens between childhood and pubescence), a spinoff was released titled High School Musical 3: Senior Year - the first 'High School Musical' to open in cinemas.
2008	Actor Will Smith scored his eighth straight $100 million hit movie (his fifth for a July 4th release), with the release of Hancock.
2009	The DreamWorks sci-fi spoof of 50s monster movies, Monsters vs. Aliens was the first computer-animated feature film to be shot directly in stereoscopic 3-D -- dubbed the Ultimate 3-D. Previously, 3-D CGI films were made in a non 3-D version and then dimensionalized. Other 3-D computer animated films would also debut in the new format: 20th Century Fox's and James Cameron's Avatar (2009), Fox's Ice Age 3 (2009), Disney's motion-capture A Christmas Carol (2009), and Pixar's Toy Story 3 (2010).