# Pixels (2015 film)
**Pixels** is a 2015 American science fiction action comedy directed by Chris Columbus, in which aliens misinterpret video feeds of classic arcade games as a declaration of war and attack Earth using the games themselves as models for their assaults.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pixels) It stars [Adam Sandler](https://www.edgepedia.org/adam-sandler) as former arcade champion Sam Brenner, Kevin James as President Will Cooper, Michelle Monaghan, Peter Dinklage, and [Josh Gad](https://www.edgepedia.org/josh-gad), and it was produced by [Columbia Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/columbia-pictures) and Sony Pictures.[2](https://www.starz.com/us/en/movies/23908) The film is an adaptation of a 2010 short film of the same name by the French filmmaker Patrick Jean.[3](https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/pixels-thinking-outside-the-voxel/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writers | Chris Columbus; screenplay by Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling, from a screen story by Tim Herlihy[4](https://www.mycomlink.co.za/sports_individual/pixels%20final.pdf) |
| Source | Adaptation of Patrick Jean's 2010 short film *Pixels*[3](https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/pixels-thinking-outside-the-voxel/) |
| Release | July 24, 2015 (US wide); earliest release July 16, 2015 in South Korea[5](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt2120120/) |
| Box office | $78,747,585 domestic, $166,127,224 international, $244,874,809 worldwide, against an $88,000,000 budget[5](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt2120120/) |
| Critical reception | 18% on the Tomatometer from 204 reviews; Metascore of 27, "generally unfavorable"[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pixels) • [6](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pixels/critic-reviews/) |
| Rating / runtime | PG-13; about 106 minutes[5](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt2120120/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
In 1982, footage of a video game championship is included in a time capsule launched into space. Aliens intercept the feed, misread the games as a declaration of war, and attack Earth using classic arcade games, including Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Centipede, and [Space Invaders](https://www.edgepedia.org/space-invaders), as models for their assaults.[7](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/pixels) President Will Cooper calls on his childhood best friend, '80s video game champion Sam Brenner, to lead a team of old-school arcaders, played by [Peter Dinklage](https://www.edgepedia.org/peter-dinklage) and Josh Gad, to defeat the aliens and save the planet.[7](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/pixels) [Michelle Monaghan](https://www.edgepedia.org/michelle-monaghan) plays Lt. Col. Violet Van Patten, a military specialist supplying the arcaders with weapons.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pixels) • [8](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Pixels?pubDate=20250531) The supporting cast includes Brian Cox as Admiral Porter, Ashley Benson as Lady Lisa, Jane Krakowski as the First Lady, Sean Bean, and Dan Aykroyd as the 1982 championship MC.[2](https://www.starz.com/us/en/movies/23908) • [9](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/pixels)
## Origin as a short film
The feature grew out of a two-and-a-half-minute short that Patrick Jean, a French filmmaker, conceived in 2009 as an homage to the video games of his youth. He shot it in New York over a few days and spent about six months editing it in Paris before posting it online, where more than a million people viewed it in the first few days. Studios then inquired about the rights, and [Sony Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/sony-pictures) offered something the others did not: Adam Sandler, who at that point still had what Jean called a good reputation and showed genuine passion for the project.[10](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2015/07/23/pixels-how-a-clever-two-minute-short-became-an-adam-sandler-movie/) Jean hoped the feature would be a family action comedy in the tradition of *Ghostbusters* and *The Last Starfighter*, and after selling the rights he shadowed Columbus during filming and editing.[10](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2015/07/23/pixels-how-a-clever-two-minute-short-became-an-adam-sandler-movie/) Development on the feature was first reported in May 2010, with production beginning in August 2014 and the film completed by June 2015.[11](https://www.movieinsider.com/m7419/pixels)
## Visual effects
**Voxel characters.** The first task for the effects team was, paradoxically, to ignore pixels: the arcade characters had to inhabit three-dimensional space, so they were built as voxels, volumetric cubes rather than flat 2D sprites. Overall visual effects supervisor Matthew Butler led a group of studios headed by Digital Domain and [Sony Pictures Imageworks](https://www.edgepedia.org/sony-pictures-imageworks).[3](https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/pixels-thinking-outside-the-voxel/) Digital Domain VFX supervisor Marten Larsson described the characters as boxes that change per frame, with the team creating 3D versions of iconic 2D characters moving in a staccato way; [Donkey Kong](https://www.edgepedia.org/donkey-kong)'s head was voxelized in local space so the cubes rotated with it, and Pac-Man's emitted light was shaped with a Fresnel falloff so the character kept some of his form.[12](https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/its-game-pixels-digital-domain) Because the games themselves contain little detail, the artists took additional cues from the artwork on the arcade cabinets while keeping the characters deliberately 8-bit and low resolution.[3](https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/pixels-thinking-outside-the-voxel/) Digital Domain worked on the project for over a year starting with previsualization.[13](https://digitaldomain.com/work/pixels/)
## Release and box office
Sony released the film wide in the United States on July 24, 2015, after an earliest international release in South Korea on July 16.[5](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt2120120/) It opened domestically to $24,011,616 and finished with $78,747,585 in the United States and Canada, 32.2% of its total, and $166,127,224 internationally, for $244,874,809 worldwide against a reported $88,000,000 production budget.[5](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt2120120/) The largest international markets included the United Kingdom ($12,800,000), Mexico ($12,258,564), and Germany ($10,277,373); China contributed $15,350,000 from a September 15, 2015 release.[5](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt2120120/) Although the worldwide gross exceeded the production budget, the film was widely considered a commercial disappointment once marketing costs were accounted for.[14](https://saturation.io/budgets/pixels-2015) Sony's own financial supplement lists the film at $79 million domestic and $244 million worldwide as of March 31, 2016.[15](https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/16q4_supplement.pdf)
## China-related edits
According to Reuters reporting based on emails leaked in the Sony hack, Sony altered the film to avoid problems with Chinese censors. A scene in the original script in which aliens shot a hole in the [Great Wall of China](https://www.edgepedia.org/great-wall-of-china) was scrapped because, in the words of a Sony executive, it would "not benefit the China release at all." A mention of China as a potential perpetrator of an attack and a reference to a cyberattack by a "Communist-conspiracy brother" were also removed.[16](https://time.com/3971251/pixels-adam-sandler-sony-edit/)
## Reception
The film was poorly received by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds an 18% Tomatometer from 204 reviews, with a critics consensus comparing it to the worst arcade games of the era that inspired it, "little replay value and hardly worth a quarter," while audiences gave it 46% on the Popcornmeter.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pixels) Metacritic assigned a Metascore of 27, "generally unfavorable," with 23 of 37 reviews negative, 12 mixed, and 2 positive.[6](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pixels/critic-reviews/) The most favorable review among those tallied came from the Charlotte Observer (75/100), whose critic wrote that the script by [Tim Herlihy](https://www.edgepedia.org/tim-herlihy) and Timothy Dowling "gets relaxed, throwaway laughs, even if it doesn't always hold together."[6](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pixels/critic-reviews/) At the other end, the *Chicago Sun-Times* found the special effects surprisingly average and the acting lazy, and [The Hollywood Reporter](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-hollywood-reporter) called it a one-note comedy that runs out of gas within an hour and should have been trimmed to 90 minutes.[6](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pixels/critic-reviews/) Peter Sobczynski, writing at RogerEbert.com, judged the premise sound but the execution squandered, while noting that Peter Dinklage scored the lion's share of the laughs with a turn inspired by the real-life gaming champion [Billy Mitchell](https://www.edgepedia.org/billy-mitchell).[17](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/pixels-2015) The Houston Film Critics Society named it the Worst Film of 2015.[14](https://saturation.io/budgets/pixels-2015)
## References
1. [Pixels, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pixels)
2. [Pixels, STARZ](https://www.starz.com/us/en/movies/23908)
3. [Pixels: thinking outside the voxel, fxguide (Ian Failes, July 26, 2015)](https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/pixels-thinking-outside-the-voxel/)
4. [Pixels production notes, Comlink](https://www.mycomlink.co.za/sports_individual/pixels%20final.pdf)
5. [Pixels (2015), Box Office Mojo](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt2120120/)
6. [Pixels critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pixels/critic-reviews/)
7. [PIXELS, Sony Pictures Entertainment](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/pixels)
8. [Pixels (2015), The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Pixels?pubDate=20250531)
9. [Pixels streaming, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/pixels)
10. ['Pixels': How a clever two-minute short became an Adam Sandler movie, The Washington Post (Stephanie Merry, July 23, 2015)](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2015/07/23/pixels-how-a-clever-two-minute-short-became-an-adam-sandler-movie/)
11. [Everything You Need to Know About Pixels Movie (2015), Movie Insider](https://www.movieinsider.com/m7419/pixels)
12. [It's Game On for 'Pixels' at Digital Domain, Animation World Network (Trevor Hogg, August 20, 2015)](https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/its-game-pixels-digital-domain)
13. [Pixels, Digital Domain](https://digitaldomain.com/work/pixels/)
14. [Pixels (2015): $88M Budget & $244.9M Box Office, Saturation.io](https://saturation.io/budgets/pixels-2015)
15. [Supplemental Information of the Consolidated Financial Results, Sony Corporation](https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/16q4_supplement.pdf)
16. [Sony Tweaked Adam Sandler Movie Pixels to Avoid Embarrassing China, Time (July 24, 2015)](https://time.com/3971251/pixels-adam-sandler-sony-edit/)
17. [Pixels movie review & film summary, RogerEbert.com (Peter Sobczynski, 2015)](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/pixels-2015)
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