Sing (2016 American film)


Sing is a 2016 American computer-animated musical comedy film produced by Illumination Entertainment and released by Universal Pictures. It was written and directed by Garth Jennings, co-directed by Christophe Lourdelet and stars the ensemble voices of Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, Taron Egerton, and Tori Kelly. The film is about a group of anthropomorphic animals that enter a singing competition, hosted by a koala who is trying to save his theater.
The film includes more than 60 songs from famous artists and also has an original song by Stevie Wonder and Ariana Grande called "Faith," which was nominated for a Golden Globe. It screened on the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2016, premiered at Microsoft Theater on December 3, 2016 and was released in the United States on December 21, 2016, by Universal Pictures. The film received generally positive reviews and grossed $634 million worldwide.
A sequel, titled Sing 2, is scheduled to be released on December 22, 2021.

Plot

In a city of anthropomorphic animals called Calatonia, theater owner koala Buster Moon hosts a singing competition to promote his struggling theater, following financial problems brought up by bank representative llama Judith. A mishap involving the glass eye of Buster's assistant, elderly iguana Miss Crawly, applies two extra zeroes to the prize money, and the misprinted flyers are blown out the window into the street.
Animals from across the city gather for auditions. Those selected include: housewife and mother of 25 piglets Rosita; punk-rock porcupine Ash; gorilla Johnny, son of mobster Big Daddy; street musician mouse Mike; a singing and dancing frog trio; and opera singer camel Pete. Teenage elephant Meena fails her audition from stage fright, while Ash's ill-tempered boyfriend Lance is dismissed from the contest. Rosita is paired with an exuberant pig named Gunter for a dance routine. Buster discovers the flyers advertise a prize of $100,000 – money he does not have – but remains optimistic. He arranges a visit with his friend Eddie's grandmother, former opera singer and stage actress Nana Noodleman, who is hesitant to sponsor the prize money but agrees to attend a private preview of the show.
Pressured by her grandfather, Meena tries to ask Buster for another chance to perform, but becomes his stage hand instead. When the frog trio breaks up and quits and Pete is injured, Meena is added as an act. Rosita flounders in her dance routine with Gunter, distracted by her parenting duties that have fallen into disarray. After discovering Lance broke up with her for a new girlfriend, telling her that she was never around anymore, and evicting them from her apartment, Ash breaks down while singing her assigned song, Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe." Johnny is torn between rehearsals and having to help his father as the driver of a getaway car in a heist. Trying to do both, he fails to pick up the robbers in time due to a traffic jam, and his father and his gang are arrested. Meena does not get any help in overcoming her stage fright, and Mike, certain the prize money is as good as his, buys a fancy car to impress a female mouse and swindles a group of bears in a card game.
The day of the preview, the bears interrupt the show, demanding the money from Mike, who points to Buster. The bears open the prize chest, but it is nowhere near $100,000. The glass tank of luminescent squids lighting the stage breaks and floods the theater, which comes crashing down. Judith repossesses the lot and Buster, who had been living in his desk at the theater, takes up residence with Eddie at his parents' pool house. The contestants try to cheer him up, but Buster is too despondent to listen. He tries to start over by opening a car wash.
When Meena goes to the rubble of the theater and sings Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", Buster hears her and is inspired to reinstate the show without the prize money, performing on a makeshift stage on the lot for Rosita and Meena's families. Rosita and Gunter perform Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off", which finally prompts Rosita's husband, Norman, to pay attention to her singing talent. More animals are drawn to the scene as the show is broadcast on the news. Johnny's rendition of Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" impresses his father, who escapes from prison to reconcile with him and apologize. Despite an interruption by Judith, Ash sings her original rock song "Set It All Free," which her ex-boyfriend watches on TV and finally acknowledges Ash's talent. Mike returns to the show and sings Frank Sinatra's "My Way,” and Meena finally overcomes her fears and sings Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing", which literally brings down the house.
The show is a success and impresses Nana, who was in the audience. She buys the lot and the theater is rebuilt and reopened.

Voice cast

The voices of Rosita and Norman's piglet children were provided by Oscar, Leo, Caspar, and Asa Jennings, the children of Garth Jennings, the film's writer and director. Jennings had directors Edgar Wright and Wes Anderson provide "additional voices", continuing a tradition of the three friends appearing in each other's films. An archival recording of Shooby Taylor, who died in 2003, was used for one of the contestants.

Production

In January 2014, it was announced that Garth Jennings would write and direct an animated comedy film for Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment, about "courage, competition and carrying a tune," which was originally titled Lunch, and then retitled as Sing.
On January 14, 2015, Matthew McConaughey was cast in the film's lead voice role. Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy produced the film. On June 17, 2015, it was confirmed that McConaughey's character was named Buster and that John C. Reilly would voice Eddie, a sheep and Buster's best friend. In November 2015, it was announced that Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, Tori Kelly and Taron Egerton had joined the cast of the film.
The film features 65 pop songs, the rights to which cost 15 percent of the film's $75 million budget. The animation was created entirely in France by Illumination Mac Guff.

Soundtrack

A soundtrack album for the film was released on December 21, 2016.

Release

The almost complete film was screened as a work in progress beginning September 11, 2016 at the Toronto International Film Festival. Universal Studios released the film on December 21, 2016.

Home media

Sing was released on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, Ultra HD Blu-ray and DVD on March 21, 2017. It includes three short films: Gunter Babysits, Love at First Sight, and Eddie's Life Coach.

Box office

Sing grossed $270.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $363.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $634.1 million, against a production budget of $75 million. Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $194.2 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenue for the film, making it the 7th most profitable release of 2016.
In North America, the film opened alongside Passengers and Assassin's Creed, and was expected to gross around $70 million from 4,022 theaters over its first six days of release. The film made $1.7 million during its Tuesday night previews. It went on to gross $35.2 million in its opening weekend, finishing second at the box office behind Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which was in its second week. It rose 21% in its second weekend to $42.9 million, remaining in second, and grossed $20.8 million in its third week and finishing third. Sing holds the record for being the highest-grossing film to never finish first at the North American box office, beating My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 71% based on 178 reviews, and an average rating of 6.49/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Sing delivers colorfully animated, cheerfully undemanding entertainment with a solid voice cast and a warm-hearted – albeit familiar – storyline that lives up to its title." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 59 out of 100 based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Brian Truitt of USA Today gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars and wrote, "In a year full of talking-animal hits, Sing isn't quite as strong a number. It's a tale that might not be particularly thought-provoking but sure is toe-tapping." In her review for the Los Angeles Times, Katie Walsh called Sing, "a cute movie with genuinely funny moments, and some great tunes to boot." The Arizona Republics Bill Goodykoontz was rather mixed about the movie in his review and overall said, "Sing is like an album with a good song here and there, but too much filler and not enough hits." Reviewing the version of the film screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, Stefan Pape of the British website HeyUGuys gave the film a mixed review of 2/5, stating that "Garth Jennings's Sing effectively acknowledges early on that it's following a completely unoriginal formula, and yet carries on regardless." While Peter Debruge of Variety, who also saw the film during the same festival, did not find the subplots to have any "profound life lessons," he overall praised Jennings' direction, the cast's voice performances and the film's silliness.

Accolades

Sequel

On January 25, 2017, Universal and Illumination announced plans for a sequel with writer/director Jennings, producers Meledandri and Healy, and the original cast returning for it. The film was originally scheduled for release on December 25, 2020. However, on April 12, 2019, the release date was pushed back to July 2, 2021, accommodating the release of The Croods 2.
On April 1, 2020, Universal pushed Sing 2's release date to December 22, 2021, with taking the July 2, 2021 release date due to the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on the film industry.