ROBLOX: The Movie (hfmbears version)

NOTE: This was not in any way inspired by Jadhostgamer072's ROBLOX movie idea, so please don't call this a rip off of his film idea, but rather take it as it's own different thing entirely.ROBLOX: The Movie (also known as just ROBLOX) is a 2012 American animated comedy drama action adventure film directed by Garret Fredrickson and Ash Brannon and is based on the online game of the same name. Starring the voices of Nolan North, Jeff Bridges, Martin Short, Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, Jack Black, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Evan Rachel Wood, Dee Bradley Baker, and James Arnold Taylor, it was produced by Nighstorm Entertainment, Animal Logic Film, ImageMovers, and Legendary Pictures in their 2nd animated film and was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was the first CGI animated film directed by Garrett Fredrickson.

ROBLOX: The Movie was released to theaters on June 14th, 2012 to positive reviews from critics, with many outlets calling it one of the best films to be based on a game, and was a success at the box office grossing $235.7 million worldwide against a budget of $70 to 80 million. It was nominated for two Oscars for Best Animated Film and Best Actor, but lost to Pixar's Brave and Daniel Day Lewis in Lincoln, respectively.

Plot
COMING SOON

Cast

 * Nolan North
 * Jeff Bridges as Hutch, a wise and cunning person who has experience as a retired cop
 * Martin Short as "The Guest", a smart and witty person who hides under the name "The Guest" for anonymity reasons, the character was inspired by the Guest feature ROBLOX added in September 2008
 * Julia Roberts
 * Nicolas Cage
 * Jack Black
 * Sarah Michelle Gellar
 * Evan Rachel Wood
 * Dee Bradley Baker
 * James Arnold Taylor

Production
In 2007, when the popularity of the game ROBLOX continued to skyrocket, the developer team behind the game felt it was time for something bigger to be made from the game, but they didn't know what. A vote was done between a feature length film, or a spin off game, and ultimately, the feature length film got the most votes, so development on the film began.

In early 2008, the project was presented to Garrett Fredrickson and his production company Nightstorm Entertainment, he was initially unfamiliar with the game and played a few servers to get a general idea of how the game would work. Fredrickson took up the job as both director and writer afterwards citing his reason as "With a game like ROBLOX, you can tell whatever story you want and you're not limited to just a story the game carries". When his decision was made, Fredrickson rounded up a production crew that had experience in film making, including Ash Brannon as a co-director, Karey Kirkpatrick as one of the writers and producers, and even Thomas Tull and Robert Zemeckis on board with the film, with their production companies Legendary Pictures and ImageMovers as co-financers.

However, in 2010, when production for the film was underway, ROBLOX made an update to change it's target demographic from 10 to 16 year olds to just 6 to 8 year olds, and Fredrickson was concerned that this would cause a massive problem in production because of the fact the film was a bit more serious in tone, the people at Warner Bros knew this and insisted for ROBLOX to "not mess with the film's current status", and ultimately, the people at ROBLOX decided to allow the film's story to stay as is.

Animation
Animal Logic Film, who had also worked on Happy Feet and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, was tasked with doing the animation for the film. Like with what they would later do with The LEGO Movie, they decided to make the film have the same aesthetics as the game itself, including having the characters having much of the same articulation limits the ROBLOX character rigs have, the scenery was also projected through ROBLOX Studio, and the models used were converted to be animated through Maya and XSI. With the character of The Guest, the animators were conflicted whether or not the text on the back of his shirt, which read "make a free account to change how you look!", should be kept intact or just be replaced with simple lines, eventually the film makers decided to leave it intact for authenticity. A few background characters were also designed after a few well known ROBLOX users at the time.

Release
ROBLOX: The Movie premiered at the Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles, California on May 26th, 2012 and was released on June 8th, 2012. Before the release though, a few scenes from the film had to be removed in order to secure a PG rating from the MPAA

Marketing
To tie in with the film's release, McDonalds sold figures of characters from the film as part of their happy meals. A video game based on the movie was developed by Activision for the Wii, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo 3DS, and Windows and was released on May 28th, 2012. ROBLOX also sold gear that was inspired by stuff used in the movie

Box Office
ROBLOX: The Movie was released alongside Snow White and the Huntsman, Battlefield America, and For Greater Glory and opened at #2 behind Snow White and the Huntsman, but later fell behind to the openings to Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted and Prometheus. Despite that, by the end of the film's run, it had grossed 235.7 million worldwide

Critical Response
ROBLOX: The Movie received positive reviews from critics, and was widely considered one of the best films based on a game. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a score of 85% based on 153 reviews, with the critical consensus reading "A rare case of a film based on a game done right, ROBLOX: The Movie manages to keep the spirit of the game while adding a lot of charm and wit along the way". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 74 out of 100 indicating favorable reviews.

Home Media
Warner Home Video released the film on DVD and Blu-Ray (2D and 3D) on October 9th, 2012. There was also a special "Builder's Club Edition" 3D Blu-Ray which contained a collectible 3D photo of the characters from the movie and a small book that was inspired by the very first blog post on the ROBLOX Blog about the origins of ROBLOX. A 4K UHD Blu-Ray was later released in 2016.