Rio (2011 film) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Rio
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Carlos Saldanha
Produced by	Bruce Anderson John C. Donkin
Screenplay by	Don Rhymer Joshua Sternin Jennifer Ventimilia Sam Harper
Story by	Carlos Saldanha Earl Richey Jones Todd Jones
Starring	Jesse Eisenberg Anne Hathaway will.i.am Jamie Foxx Jemaine Clement Leslie Mann George Lopez Tracy Morgan Wanda Sykes Jane Lynch Judah Friedlander
Music by	John Powell
Cinematography	Renato Falcão
Editing by	Harry Hitner
Studio	Blue Sky Studios 20th Century Fox Animation
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	March 22, 2011 (2011-03-22) (Lagoa, Rio de Janeiro) April 15, 2011 (2011-04-15) (United States)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$90 million
Money made	$484.6 million

Rio is a 2011 American animated musical adventure comedy film produced by Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox Animation. It was directed by Carlos Saldanha from a screenplay written by Don Rhymer, Joshua Sternin, Jeffrey Ventimilia, and Sam Harper, based on a story conceived by Saldanha and the writing team of Earl Richey Jones and Todd Jones. The title refers to the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, where the film is set. The film features the voices of Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro, Jemaine Clement, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, will.i.am, and Jamie Foxx. It tells the story of Blu (Eisenberg), a domesticated male Spix's macaw who is taken to Rio de Janeiro to mate with a free-spirited female Spix's macaw, Jewel (Hathaway). The two eventually fall in love, and together they have to escape from being smuggled by Nigel (Clement), a cockatoo.

Saldanha developed his first story concept of Rio in 2005, in which a penguin is washed up in Rio. Saldanha learned of the production of the films Happy Feet (2006) and Surf's Up (2007), and changed the concept to involve macaws and their environments in Rio. He proposed his idea to Chris Wedge in 2006, and the project was set up at Blue Sky. The main voice actors were approached in 2009. During production, the crew visited Rio de Janeiro and also consulted with an expert on macaws at the Bronx Zoo to study their movements.

Rio debuted on March 22, 2011, in Lagoa, Rio de Janeiro, followed by its general release on April 15, 2011, by 20th Century Fox. The film received generally positive reviews from film critics, who praised the visuals, voice acting, characters, and music. The film was also a box office success, grossing over $143 million in the United States and $484 million worldwide. The film was nominated for Best Original Song for the song "Real in Rio" at the 84th Academy Awards. A sequel, Rio 2, was released on April 11, 2014.

Plot

In Moose Lake, Minnesota, a crate containing an orphaned male Spix's macaw hatchling that was smuggled out of Brazil falls from a truck and is found by Linda Gunderson, who names him Blu. Fifteen years later, Blu is highly domesticated and unable to fly, and is frequently ridiculed by the Canada geese that come by Linda's bookstore. Ornithologist Túlio Monteiro invites Blu and Linda to Rio de Janeiro for Blu, the last known male of his species, to mate with the last known female. At Túlio's aviary in Rio, Blu meets his prospective mate, the fiercely independent Jewel who longs to flee back to the wilderness.

Later at night, while Linda and Túlio are out, the macaws are captured by an orphaned boy named Fernando and a sulphur-crested cockatoo named Nigel, both of whom work for a gang of smugglers led by Marcel, who wants to leave the country quickly to sell Blu and Jewel on the black market. While Fernando begins to regret his actions, Nigel reveals to the macaws of how his disdain for pretty birds arose when he was replaced by a parakeet on a television show. Blu's familiarity with cages allows him and Jewel to escape, though they are forced to travel on foot as Marcel had chained their legs together with legcuffs. Fernando helps Linda and Túlio search for the macaws the next morning, while Blu and Jewel meet the toco toucan Rafael, whose bulldog friend, Luiz, will remove their chain.

Rafael tries to teach Blu to fly, with little success. They meet red-crested cardinal Pedro and his yellow canary friend Nico. Elsewhere, Nigel coerces a horde of thieving marmosets led by Mauro to capture Blu and Jewel. To help Blu and Jewel get along better, Pedro and Nico take the macaws to a samba dance party, where they begin to fall in love, until the marmosets arrive. The five birds eventually escape on a tram.

At the smugglers' hideout, Fernando, Linda, and Túlio discover the macaws are no longer there. Fernando gets the smugglers to reveal that they will use the Rio Carnival parade to smuggle the birds to the airport. Blu and the others meet Luiz, whose saliva allows Blu and Jewel to slip out of their chain. Once released, Jewel flies happily into the sky with the others. Believing that he would only hold Jewel back, Blu turns to leave, but Jewel does not want to leave Blu behind. After a brief argument, they go their separate ways.

When Nigel captures Jewel, Blu, Rafael, Nico, and Pedro rush to the parade to rescue her, but also end up captured by Nigel. Elsewhere, Linda and Túlio pose as dancers in Spix's macaw costumes to access the parade but fail to stop the smugglers in time. After Fernando fails to release Blu and Jewel, the smugglers take off in their aircraft. Using a fire extinguisher, Blu breaks out of his cage and quickly releases the other birds. Still unable to fly, Blu hesitates to follow, but Jewel comforts him before the two are attacked by Nigel. Nigel injures Jewel's wing, but Blu sends Nigel into the plane's propellers and the plane begins to fall. The smugglers parachute from the plane while Jewel falls out of the open cargo hatch. Blu jumps after her, this time insisting he won't leave her. Jewel kisses Blu in response. In his euphoria, Blu finally unlocks his ability to fly, and he carries her to Linda and Túlio.

Now a couple, Linda and Túlio adopt Fernando and live in their jungle sanctuary. Blu and Jewel raise three chicks together and celebrate with Rafael, Nico, Pedro, Luiz, Linda, and Túlio, who have set up a branch of Blu and Linda's Minnesota bookstore in Rio. Meanwhile, Nigel is revealed to have survived the plane crash, but Mauro ridicules him for losing his feathers, while the smugglers are arrested and sent to jail for their crimes.

Voice cast

• Jesse Eisenberg as Blu, a male Spix's macaw who was born in Rio de Janeiro but raised in Moose Lake, Minnesota, after he was smuggled.
• Anne Hathaway as Jewel, a female Spix's macaw from the Amazon Jungle, but was taken into Rio de Janeiro.
• will.i.am as Pedro, a red-crested cardinal who is Nico's best friend.
• Jamie Foxx as Nico, a yellow canary who is Pedro's best friend, loves to samba, and whose bottle-cap hat functions as a pandeiro.
• George Lopez as Rafael, a romantic, wise, and energetic toco toucan who is Eva's carnival loving mate.
• Tracy Morgan as Luiz, a bulldog who is Rafael's friend and a saw expert who has a medical condition of drooling.
• Jemaine Clement as Nigel, a sulphur-crested cockatoo who used to be a TV star, but was replaced by a Parakeet, causing him to have a strong hatred for "pretty birds."
• Leslie Mann as Linda Gunderson, a girl who discovered Blu after he was taken from Rio de Janeiro to Moose Lake and adopted him for 15 years.
  • Sofia Scarpa Saldanha as Young Linda Gunderson
• Rodrigo Santoro as Dr. Túlio Monteiro, a Brazilian ornithologist who befriends Linda. Santoro also voices a Soccer Announcer.
• Jake T. Austin as Fernando, Marcel's impoverished young assistant.
• Carlos Ponce as Marcel, Nigel's owner and the leader of a group of exotic bird smugglers.
• Davi Vieira as Armando, one of Marcel's henchmen.
• Jeffrey Garcia as Tipa, one of Marcel's henchmen. Garcia also voices a bat, who was among the captured birds.
• Jane Lynch as Alice, a Canada goose who is Chloe's sister.
• Wanda Sykes as Chloe, a Canada goose who is Alice's sister.
• Bebel Gilberto as Eva, a keel-billed toucan and Rafael's wife.
• Bernardo de Paula as Kipo, a roseate spoonbill, and Sylvio, the security guard at Túlio's aviary.
• Francisco Ramos as the Lead Marmoset, the leader of the marmosets. His name was revealed as Mauro in Angry Birds Rio.

Production

Saldanha first had the idea for the film in 2005, involving a penguin being washed up on the beaches of Ipanema; it was changed to the current story after he learned of Happy Feet and Surf's Up (two other films involving penguins) being produced. He pitched the idea to Chris Wedge at Blue Sky in 2006. Saldanha showed the animators maps and books with geographic landmarks and measurements, from which they built a digital version of Rio. Later, a group of artists from the company visited Rio to see the various story locations. The animators also met with an expert on macaws at the Bronx Zoo to gain insight into their movement and personalities. Saldanha himself is a Brazilian from Rio de Janeiro; such elements of Brazilian culture and landmarks were also influenced from Saldanha growing up in Brazil.

The lead voice actors were approached in 2009. Jemaine Clement was approached to do the film after seeing test shots of his character Nigel doing a speech from Flight of the Conchords, which was done prior to a script being finalized. Neil Patrick Harris was supposed to voice Blu, but had other commitments outside production; he was later replaced by Jesse Eisenberg. Eisenberg was asked during the filming of The Social Network if he would do his voice recording on the weekends, and he agreed after reading the script, saying: "It was the perfect antidote to get out of the mindset of my character in Social Network who was so severe, and in some ways so joyless."

For music, they brought on board Sérgio Mendes to act as music guru and online living library. He in turn was able to reach out to artists such as will.i.am and Carlinhos Brown to provide music for the film.

Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway, who voiced Jewel, had acted together before when both were still teenagers, when they played siblings in the short-lived 1999 TV show Get Real. Hathaway stated in an interview that she didn't see Eisenberg during production of Rio except "socially throughout the process," but that she was "very happy for all of his success."

Music

Rio (Music from the Motion Picture) was released by Interscope Records on April 5, 2011, for digital download and followed by a physical release on April 12, 2011. The album was produced by the film's score composer John Powell (who regularly worked on most of Blue Sky's films) and Brazilian musician Sérgio Mendes, and features performances from the film's cast, alongside collaborations from Brazilian and American musicians. On March 18, 2011, Brazilian-English singer-songwriter Taio Cruz released a music video and theme song named "Telling the World" on YouTube for the soundtrack, and was released for digital download, two days later. It was positively received, and debuted at number 60 on Billboard 200 charts. Powell's score for the film was released into a separate album on April 19, 2011, by the Varèse Sarabande label.

Release

The world premiere of Rio took place on March 22, 2011, at a Cinépolis theater in Lagoa, Rio de Janeiro. The United States premiere was on April 10, 2011, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California, and was released throughout the country five days later. Since May 2009, it had been scheduled to be released in the United States on April 8, 2011, but in December 2010, it was rescheduled a week later to April 15, 2011. The film was also dedicated to the memory of Clymene Campos Saldanha.

Marketing

In April 2011, Oreo announced its special edition Oreo cookies with blue cream in promotion of the film. The promotion included stickers inside each package of cookies. Two types of contest were also announced: first, by completing an album of stickers, consumers could win three movie passes and medium snack bar combos; second, by finding winning stickers in packages with prizes including a trip to Rio de Janeiro, backpacks, cinema passes for a year, and 3D glasses. The promotion ended on May 30, 2011. The promotion is available in Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia.

On January 27, 2011, Rovio Mobile announced a partnership with 20th Century Fox to promote the film. The game Angry Birds Rio was released in March 2011 on the Android Market and the Apple App Store with 50 levels. Rovio released more levels throughout 2011. With the DVD and Blu-ray release, Rovio and 20th Century Fox announced that they were going to start selling Rio Plush Toys in the Angry Birds Online Store and the DVD and Blu-ray comes with a code for 15 Hidden Levels, along with 3 Angry Birds Rio Videos. Also, McDonald's ran a promotion with Rio toys in their Happy Meals.

In February 2011, the MPAA gave the film a PG rating for "mild off-color humor". The producers, displeased by this rating, resubmitted an edited version of the film to the ratings board one month later, and the MPAA changed the film to a G rating.

Home media

As a tribute to the country where most of the story is set and where the director was born, Rio was first released for home video in Brazil, on both DVD and Blu-ray, on July 7, 2011. The North American release date was August 2, 2011, and the Australian release date was September 28, 2011. As of June 2014, 12 million Blu-ray and DVD units had been sold worldwide.

Rio is available in 4 different packages: a 4-disc "Party Edition" combination package (3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital Copy), a 3-disc "Party Edition" combination package (Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital Copy), a 2-disc "Party Edition" combination package (DVD and Digital Copy), and a single disc DVD. The "Digital Copy" included with the 3-disc combination package is a separate disc that allows users to download a copy of the film to a computer through iTunes or Windows Media Player software. The 3-disc combination package also comes with an hour of bonus features.

Rio was also made available to Disney+ on April 16, 2021, but has been removed from the service as of December 2, 2021. However, it still remains in certain regions (such as New Zealand) as of December 16th, 2022. The film returned to Disney+ on March 3, 2023.

Video games

A video game based on the film was released on April 12, 2011, by THQ, for the Wii, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, and the Xbox 360. Another game, starring the Angry Birds, called Angry Birds Rio, was released in March 2011 for various mobile and desktop systems.

Expanded franchise

Sequel

A sequel, titled Rio 2, was released on April 11, 2014. Carlos Saldanha, the creator and director of the first film, returned as director. All the main cast, including Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg, Jemaine Clement, Jamie Foxx, will.i.am, Tracy Morgan, George Lopez, Jake T. Austin, Leslie Mann, and Rodrigo Santoro, reprised their roles. New cast includes Andy García, Bruno Mars, Kristin Chenoweth, Rita Moreno, Amandla Stenberg, Rachel Crow, Pierce Gagnon, and Natalie Morales. The sequel follows Blu, Jewel and their three kids on a venture into the Amazon where they try to live like real birds. Eventually, they find Jewel's long-lost father Eduardo, who is in hiding with a tribe of other Spix's macaw. At first everything seems perfect, but Blu is having trouble adapting to the wild. Eventually, they discover that the Amazon is under threat, and that Blu and Jewel's old nemesis, Nigel the cockatoo, is back for revenge.

Third film

Director Carlos Saldanha had kept the possibility for Rio 3 open. In April 2014, he stated, "Of course, I have a lot of stories to tell, so we're [starting to] prepare for it."

During the promotion of The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, it was revealed that a third Rio movie was in development, with Jim Hecht writing the screenplay.

Spin-off

In October 2019, after the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney, it was reported that a spin-off centered on Nico and Pedro was in early development for Disney+. The shut down of Blue Sky Studios in 2021 left the fate of this spin-off uncertain.

Rio: The 4-D Experience

Rio: The 4-D Experience is a 12-minute 4D film shown at various 4-D theatres over the world. Produced by SimEx-Iwerks, it premiered on September 27, 2013, at the San Diego Zoo 4-D Theater. Since May 24, 2014, it is being shown at the 5D Cinema at the revived Kentucky Kingdom. Since July 2014, it is being shown at the 4D Special FX Theater at Moody Gardens. And since October 25, 2014, it is being shown at the Roxy Theatre at Warner Bros. Movie World.

See also

In Spanish: Río (película) para niños