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Milestones and Turning Points in Film History The Year 2005 |
 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 | 2020s |
| Event and Significance | |
| Semi-offensive R-rated comedies, including retooled romantic comedies and 'bromances' (guy-meets-guy romances) containing generous portions of profanity, sex and nudity, and debauchery, were shown to be popular - and appealing to male audiences. Two hit comedies in 2005 proved that pushing the boundaries of good taste were very profitable: Wedding Crashers (2005) (with revenue of $209.3 million domestic) and Judd Apatow's breakthrough film The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005) (with revenue of $109.5 million domestic). Apatow also directed Knocked Up (2007) and Funny People (2009) and served as producer for the successful Anchorman (2004), Talladega Nights (2006), the genitalia-obsessed Superbad (2007), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) and the slapstick buddy-comedy Step Brothers (2008). He helped to foster the burgeoning careers of Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen. | |
| The action sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), the first Sony Pictures film, was also the first feature film to be released on Blu-Ray Disc, a next generation, high-definition optical disc format pioneered by Sony, providing increased storage capacity and advanced HD video and audio. Its higher capacity and performance were expected to sufficiently meet the future demands and expectations of high definition (HD) movie distribution and personal video recording. | |
| 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. | |
| The popularity of the new DVD format (and the start of a new optical disc format called Blu-Ray) doomed the once-ubiquitous VHS videotape cassette format. By the end of 2005, DVD sales were more than $22 billion and VHS was slumping badly but still able to pull in $1.5 billion. At the same time, JVC, the company that introduced the Video Home System (VHS) format to the US in 1977, announced that it would no longer make stand-alone videocassette recorders, further making it a "dead technology." When Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) was released on home video late in the year, it was only available on DVD, marking the first time an installment of the Stars Wars franchise-saga was not on VHS. | |
| Marlon Brando's personal 173-page film script (annotated) from The Godfather (1972) sold for $312,800 to an anonymous bidder at Christie's in New York City on June 30, 2005. It was the world's most expensive script from a film. | |
| Director David Cronenberg's crime-thriller A History of Violence (2005) was the last major Hollywood feature film to be released (in early 2006) in the once-ubiquitous VHS videotape cassette format. The film also featured - purportedly - the first instance of reciprocal oral sex (69 or sixty-nine) ever performed in a non-pornographic (mainstream) American film, between a married couple (Maria Bello and Viggo Mortensen). | |
| 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 (domestic) and $848.7 million (worldwide). Its four-day opening take was a record $158.4 million. It was the # 1 highest-grossing (domestic) film of 2005, surpassing second-place The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005) at $291.7 million, and the third-place film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), the fourth film in the Harry Potter series at $290 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. | |
| 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, better interactive video games, increasing gas-pump prices, a greater decrease in time between a film's theatrical release and the sale of the DVD version, the increase in bootleg DVDs and illegally-downloaded copies, greater competition from other forms of leisure entertainment, etc. It was suggested that the industry make better films, provide discounted tickets, make cheaper films, and eliminate various annoyances in movie theatres (i.e., commercials, use of cellphones, sticky environments, etc.). | |
| The March of the Penguins (2005), about the mating rituals of penguins, became one of the most popular non-fiction films ever released in American theaters. It was named the Best Documentary Feature Film by the Academy. It was the first nature documentary to win Best Documentary Feature since The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971). It cost only $8 million to make and earned almost $78 million - becoming the highest-grossing nature documentary, and marking the second-highest gross for a non-IMAX documentary. | |
| 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. | |
| 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. | |
| Writer/director Josh Whedon's 26th century, sci-fi space action-adventure/western film (adapted from the TV series Firefly), his directorial debut film, was Serenity (2005). It became the first full-resolution pirated download of an HD DVD movie, when it emerged in 2007 on the BitTorrent network as a 19.6 GB .evo file. This marked the beginning of widespread HD-DVD pirating. | |
| Buena Vista's and director Garth Jennings' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) was the only adaptation of one of writer Douglas Adams' five Hitchhiker's books, and it performed poorly. The adventure sci-fi comedy with a budget of $50 million took in only $51 million (domestic) and $104.5 million (worldwide), possibly insuring no more sequels. | |
| DreamWorks' and Rob Marshall's Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) (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. | |
| Viacom's Paramount Pictures 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), A Beautiful Mind (2001) - and Shrek (2001) - there were three consecutive Best Picture winners beginning in 1999. | |
| 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. | |
| Wedding Crashers (2005), 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'. | |
| Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005), costing $207 million in production costs, surpassed the $200 million mark (not adjusted for inflation) set by Titanic (1997), and also reached by Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 (2004). | |
| The remake of the classic and tragic beauty-and-the-beast love story of the 1933 King Kong film, Jackson's King Kong (2005) featured a computer-generated Kong. It was remarkable for having the largest number of special/visual effects shots in a single film, surpassing the previous records set by Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), and Jackson's own trilogy of The Lord of the Rings films. The more than 3,200 final shots in the film were culled from 3 million feet of live-action footage and 2,510 visual effects shots. | |
| 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). | |
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Video hosting was more easily implemented by the creation of YouTube, a US video-sharing website developed in February of 2005. The first video ever posted on YouTube was titled ''Me at the Zoo'' (the San Diego Zoo). It was uploaded by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim in April of 2005. The first video to reach 1 million views was a Nike advertisement featuring Ronaldinho (a popular Brazilian soccer/football player) in November of 2005. In the fall of 2006, Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion. |
| Apple launched support for video podcasting (aka audio-blogging) for its iTunes software in mid-2005. Apple offered more than 3,000 free podcasts in a podcast directory on its iTunes platform. Steve Jobs explained that podcasting was like "TiVo for radio" and a revolution in pod-casting was about to develop. In late 2005, a new model called I-Pod Video was announced - it was the first iPod capable of displaying video. In addition to all the features of the previous iPod (color), the iPod (with video) added a larger 2.5" color screen, a slimmer case, and the ability to display video. This development would significantly expand and revolutionize portable video viewing and entertainment. | |
| 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. | |
| Director/actor George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), 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. | |
| 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. | |
| Movie mogul brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein ceased being co-chief executives at the Disney-owned film production company Miramax, in September of 2005. [In 1993, Disney acquired Miramax for about $80 million - a studio known for creative and independent film making and production. Miramax was responsible for some of the most successful films after the merger, including Pulp Fiction (1994), The English Patient (1996), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Good Will Hunting (1998), Chicago (2002), and Cold Mountain (2003).] The two Weinsteins, who founded the hugely successful firm 25 years earlier in 1979, would remain as co-chairmen of Miramax and continue to make films for Disney through their new film production company, The Weinstein Company. The Miramax name remained with the film studio owned by Disney. | |
| The trend of developing a name-blend for a celebrity super-couple continued with the prominent media and tabloid obsession over Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, dubbed "Brangelina." Their secret real-life pairing was rumored when they co-starred together in the action film Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), leading afterwards to Pitt's separation and divorce from Jennifer Aniston in 2005 after five years of marriage. | |
The world record for the longest on-screen
kiss, with an uninterrupted kiss, was surpassed in the film Kids in America
(2005). 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."[Note: It is only a legend or myth that the kiss in You're in the Army Now (1941) lasted 185 seconds. The kiss in question was actually two kisses (broken up by cutaways) that lasted a total of only 24 seconds. See https://www.filmsite.org/filmkisses6.html for detailed proof.] |
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| Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005) was his first theatrical piece adapted for the big screen. His enormously-successful African-American gospel stage plays had toured regularly (from 2000-2004), playing to the interests and concerns of his largely black, grass-roots middle-class audiences, by mixing Christian values into crowd-pleasing, mass-appeal comedies. Typical of his filmed works, it schizophrenically showcased incongruous genres in haphazard, zany fashion -- including slapstick comedy, cheap sit-com-like soap opera, serious drama, mean-spirited farce, sappy romance, God-talk, violence, and more. In this film, Perry served as its writer, producer, composer, and triple-role actor -- most notably as Madea, a gun-toting, tough-talking Southern granny-matriarch (Perry in drag in a house-dress, padded fat suit with balloon-breasts, and cheap gray-haired wig). The popular and brash character resurfaced in the next year's Madea's Family Reunion (2006) and other future films. | |
| 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. A so-called "torture-porn" trend was inaugurated by these films and others, including Wolf Creek (2005, Aust.), The Devil's Rejects (2005), and Turistas (2006). Horror franchises of this kind could be extended almost indefinitely, i.e., seven Saw films (from 2004-2010), two Hostel films (2005 and 2007), four Scary Movie spoofs (from 2000-2006), etc. The disturbing trend was highlighted by Eli Roth’s Hostel (2005), soundly condemned for its visceral excesses, and the detailed torture, dismemberment and mutilation suffered by a group of hedonistic American backpackers in Eastern Europe. In the mainstream, too, a broader range of films appeared to be opting for more bloodletting and pain than ever before, such as Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) and the Bond film Casino Royale (2006). | |
| The American Film Institute (AFI) released the eighth list in its continuing series, 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, to recognize the top 100 movie quotes in cinematic history. The most memorable movie quote of all time that they selected was Clark Gable's retort to Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939): "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." | |
| The national average ticket price for theatre admission was $6.41, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO). | |
| The stop-motion animation of Aardman Animation's comedy The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005, UK) used a record amount of Plasticine - the film required a massive 6,272 pounds of Plasticine in 42 colors. The film broke the earlier record of Chicken Run (2000, UK) which used 5,247 pounds of Plasticine. |
