Click (2006 film)

''Click'' is a 2006 American comedy drama film directed by Frank Coraci, written by Steve Koren and Mark O'Keefe, both of whom produced with Jack Giarraputo, Neal H. Moritz, and Adam Sandler, who also starred in the lead role. The film co-stars Kate Beckinsale, Christopher Walken, Henry Winkler, David Hasselhoff, Julie Kavner, and Sean Astin. Sandler plays Michael Newman, a workaholic family man who acquires a magical universal remote that enables him to control reality. The film is inspired by "The Magic Thread", a folk tale included in '' The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories''.

Filming began in late 2005 and was finished by early 2006. Sony Pictures Releasing, under Columbia Pictures, released ''Click'' in the United States on June 23, 2006 and received mixed reviews. It was made on a budget of $82.5million and grossed $240.7million. It was nominated for Best Makeup at the 79th Academy Awards (it lost the award to '' Pan's Labyrinth''). This makes ''Click'' the only Sandler-produced film to be nominated for an Academy Award.

Plot

In 2006, architect Michael Newman is consistently taken advantage of by his overbearing boss, John Ammer, and often prioritizes work over his wife Donna and their children Ben and Samantha. Michael Newman Puts on Dragon Tales For His Kids Ben & Samantha. The Next Day At The Swimming Pool Michael Newman Meets A Lifeguard. One night, unable to keep track of multiple remote controls, he visits Bed Bath & Beyond to buy a universal remote and stumbles around various departments before falling asleep on a display bed. Upon waking up, he enters the "Beyond" door and accepts a free remote control from a man named Morty, who warns him that the remote cannot be returned.

Michael discovers that the remote cannot just be used to control electronics, but it can also control the universe. As It Shows A Montonge Of Ben and Samantha Going Trick Or Treating In 2004, Michael Newman and Donna Buying A House In 1993, Ben Being Born In 1996, Samantha Being Born In 1999, Samantha and Ben Watching Dragon Tales In 2001, Michael Newman Winning The Price Is Right In, 1990, Michael Newman Going To McDonald's In 2003, Ben Watching TV In 2005, Ben Pushing Michael Newman In The Pool In 2004,
& Michael Newman and Donna Buying A Car In 1995,
He uses it at work to cause light-hearted mischief and skip past minor inconveniences such as illnesses and arguments. Morty tells him that during these times, his body is on "auto-pilot", going through the motions of everyday life while his mind skips ahead.

Anticipating that Ammer will promote him, Michael spends lavishly on himself and his family, only for Ammer to reveal that he will have to wait several months. Feeling like he has disappointed his family, he uses the remote to skip ahead to the promotion but misses out on an entire year of his life as result. In 2007, he learns that he is in marriage counseling with Donna, and the family dog, Sundance, has died. The remote, having learned Michael's preferences, begins to time-skip automatically, and every time Michael tries to destroy or throw it away, it always reappears.

Michael tries to prevent the remote from skipping ahead by avoiding many of his daily routines. In 2008 Michael Newman Is Watching Dragon Tales And Talks About DragonLand And Emmy And Max And The Dragons And Goes To Work, However, when Ammer suggests that Michael may one day become the CEO, he says he would like that to happen. This causes the remote to fast-forward ten years to the future. In 2017, he is now the wealthy but morbidly obese CEO of the company, his children are moody teenagers, and Michael Newman Watches Dragon Tales 24/7 Hours A Day 7 Days A Week and Donna has divorced him and is now dating Ben's childhood swim coach, Bill. When Michael attacks Bill out of anger, he knocks his head and loses consciousness. The remote then fast-forwards six more years to evade other follow-up injuries. In 2023, Michael Newman Is Now Grown Out Of Dragon Tales And Watching SpongeBob SquarePants and Donna recounts that Michael was diagnosed with cancer and suffered a heart attack during chemotherapy but has recovered and recently had liposuction, and she is now married to Bill.

Michael learns from a full-grown Ben that Michael's father, Ted, died of old age in 2021. Michael Newman Is Stil Watching SpongeBob SquarePants When He uses the remote to see the last time they saw each other, learning that he coldly refused to spend time with him, devastating him. At Ted's grave, Morty reveals he is the Angel of Death, enraging Michael. Overcome with guilt and shame, he asks to go to a "good place", whereupon the remote fast-forwards to Ben's wedding in 2029. Michael suffers another heart attack after overhearing Samantha refer to Bill as her father. At the hospital, Ben reveals he postponed his honeymoon due to work. Realizing that Ben is making the same mistakes he made, Michael gathers the last of his strength to follow him out of the hospital. After collapsing in the parking lot, he urges Ben to put his family first, and assures his family that he still loves them before dying.

Michael reawakens in 2006 at Bed Bath & Beyond, thinking that everything he experienced was just a dream. With a newfound appreciation of his life, he visits his parents and tells them how much he loves them, then goes home and reassures Donna, Ben, and Samantha that he will spend more time with them. Later, he discovers the remote on his kitchen counter, accompanied by a note from Morty. He realizes that his experience was not a dream, but a warning. Morty says he knows Michael will do the right thing this time. Michael then disposes of the remote in the trash bin and this time, it does not reappear. and He Says To The Kids That They Want To Have A Plliow Fight And The Kids Said Yay.

Cast

Production

On July 23, 2003, Sony Pictures purchased Steve Koren and Mark O'Keefe's spec script ''Click'' for $1.75 million, with plans for it to be an Adam Sandler film produced by Revolution Studios, Columbia Pictures, and Neal H. Moritz's company Original Film; the purchase occurred as '' Bruce Almighty'' (2003), also written by Koren and O'Keefe, had grossed $236 million domestically in its two-month run. ''Click'' was the second comedy Moritz produced for Columbia, after '' Not Another Teen Movie'' (2001). Although Sony planned filming to begin in April 2004 after Sandler finished shooting ''Spanglish'' (2004), that was postponed for Koren and O'Keefe to rewrite the script under the supervision of Juan José Campanella, who was announced as director in May 2004. However, he was replaced by Frank Coraci, who directed the Sandler films ''The Wedding Singer'' (1998) and '' The Waterboy'' (1998), in March 2005. Executive producer Tim Herlihy also revised the script. Christopher Walken joined the cast on February 23, 2005.

Imageworks began working on the film's digital effects in January 2006 without any research and development. While most of the effects were shot compositings, three-dimensional graphics were also made for the display on the remote and matte painting a few settings, such as the Bed and Beyond warehouse, a city background at Michael's workplace, and the winter backyard at his home; programs such as Cinema 4D and Autodesk Maya were used to produce the graphics. In order to make the fast-forwarding and rewinding look DVD-like, effects of interlaced video and scan lines "slicing through" were added. Motion control photography and green screen effects were used for scenes where Michael looked back on his life with the remote, meaning that were occasionally two Michaels in the same shot; while rotoscoping was used for the sequence where he changes the color of his face with the remote.

For scenes where Michael pauses his surroundings, the effects crew originally planned for everything to be frozen, including the environment; however, they found out this "bothered" the eye, thus switching the plan to only the characters being frozen while the environment (such as leaves on the trees being blown by wind) keeps in motion. The primary challenge for the freeze shots was sharpening the frozen characters as much as possible; there were some cases where the characters would freeze in a very active moment, causing the effects team to have to work with the motion blur that resulted from it. For instances where characters were frozen in a moment where they were still, they were filmed staying in that position for seconds so that, during post-production, the average of multiple frames would create a result absent of film grain.

Release and promotion

''Click''s official website debuted in late December 2005, consisting only of the film's official trailer; C.S. Strowbridge of '' The Numbers'' called the trailer "better than I expected. It seems like Adam Sandler is serious about maturing as an actor." Other interactive features and pages were added later on, such as a plot summary, image gallery, information about the cast and crew, audio and video clips, and a ''Control Your Universe'' poster generator.

The film screened out of competition at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. The film was released in the United States on June 23, 2006, and made its UK premiere in a London Empire Cinema on September 28, 2006.

Home media

''Click'' was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and UMD on October 10, 2006 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. It was the first dual layer Blu-ray disc released by Sony.

Reception

Box office

Domestic

Before ''Click''s theatrical run, Strowbridge predicted, on the basis of a weak critical reception and the commercial failure of a similar dramedy attempt of Sandler's, ''Spanglish'', ''Click'' would be one of his lesser hits; however, he suggested it could still gross up to $125 million due to its mixture of comedy and drama elements. The weekend before the film's release, Nikki Finke projected an opening weekend gross of $40 million due to similarly high numbers of prior Sony-produced Sandler comedies such as ''50 First Dates'' (2004), '' Mr. Deeds'' (2002), and ''Anger Management'' (2003). The day before the film's theatrical start, ''Entertainment Weekly''s Joshua Rich projected ''Click'' to have a $55 million opening weekend and a total overall gross of $210 million for its "broadly appealing" high concept and the inclusion of Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsale in lead roles.

Domestically, ''Click'' opened in 3,749 theaters and debuted at number-one at the box office, grossing $14.5 million on its opening day and $40 million in its opening weekend; Sony distributed the film in a hugely successful year as it was their seventh number-one hit of 2006. Groups of viewers outside the young male demographic were also higher than previous Sandler films; Sony's exit polls showed 51% of attendees being female and 50% over the age of 25. ''Click'' was also one of the only three films to surpass a $10,000 theater average that weekend with $10,673; the other two were '' Wassup Rockers'' and '' Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man'', both of which played at one theater.

Strowbridge predicted that in its second weekend, ''Click'' would fall 50% and gross $20 million due to intense competition with ''Superman Returns''. However, while ''Click'' grossed approximately that amount and got dethroned by the superhero film as expected by analysts, what wasn't anticipated was that '' The Devil Wears Prada'' would open with double the gross initially projected; as a result, ''The Devil Wears Prada'' made $27.5 million in three days and placed ''Click'' in the number-three spot.

During its third weekend, when the record-breaking '' Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest'' debuted, ''Click'' had the second-strongest hold of all competitors in the top five; it dropped only 40% from the prior weekend, while Pixar's ''Cars'' went down 38%, '' The Devil Wears Prada'' 47%, and ''Superman Returns'' 60%; ''Click'' also surpassed the $100 million mark that weekend, making it the seventh Sandler film to gross that amount. It later grossed $137.4 million in the United States and $100.3 million internationally, with a total gross of $240.7 million worldwide.

International

''Click'' opened on June 30, 2006, in Australia and New Zealand to the number-one spot in both countries; in Australia, it made $2.97 million from 281 theaters, in New Zealand $853,000 from 48. The following week, it went down 34% making $1.98 million in Australia while opening to six screens in Ireland with $59,000. By the fourth week of its international run, ''Click'' had grossed a total of $10.87 million and was running in four countries, $9.51 million of the total gross being from Australia. On the weekend of August 28, 2006, ''Click'' had a strong number-one debut in Mexico, grossing $1.76 million from 418 theaters, which helped launch the film into the international top ten, specifically number seven; it grossed $4.26 million from 1,159 screens in 22 nations, bringing the international total to $25.71 million. It went down to number nine the following weekend, grossing $3.47 million from 1,104 screens in 27 countries and increasing the total gross to $31.12 million.

Critical reception

Rotten Tomatoes gave ''Click'' a score of 34% based on 174 reviews. The average score is a 4.78/10, and the consensus is: "This latest Adam Sandler vehicle borrows shamelessly from '' It's a Wonderful Life'' and ''Back to the Future'', and fails to produce the necessary laughs that would forgive such imitation."Click Movie Reviews, Pictures
''Rotten Tomatoes''. Retrieved September 11, 2020. Metacritic gave it a score of 45 out of 100, based on 35 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

The film was criticized for its gross-out humor and unlikeable protagonist. ''Entertainment Weekly'' critic Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote ''Click'' failed at being ''It's a Wonderful Life'' because "Michael earns none of George Bailey’s mature wisdom honestly."

When it came to positive reviews, ''Newsweek'' claimed ''Click'' was predictable as a moral story but "unusually dark, occasionally touching and pretty funny" for a Sandler comedy. ''Empire''s Sam Toy enjoyed the film for its "smart and genuinely moving ideas," Beckinsale's performance, and a strong third act, although dismissed the script for being overstuffed, the first half of the film for Sandler being too restrained in his everyman role, and actors such as Coolidge, Hasselhoff and Walken for being put in small roles. Peter Bradshaw opined ''Click'' was an improvement over the previous Sandler flick '' Mr. Deeds'' (2002): "It has some moments of good-natured sweetness and Adam Sandler is improving as a comic performer, though he is still conceited and opaque."

Accolades

* 79th Academy Awards: Best Makeup (Nominated)
* 33rd People's Choice Awards: Favorite Movie Comedy (Won)
* 2006 Teen Choice Awards: Choice Movie – Comedy (Nominated)
* 2007 Kids' Choice Awards: Favorite Movie (Nominated)
* 2007 Kids' Choice Awards: Favorite Movie Actor (Won)
* '' The Numbers'': Weekly Website Award (Won)
* '' Variety'': Adam Sandler's 10 Worst Movies Ever (Unranked list)

References

External links

*
*
*

{{Portal bar, 2000s, Film, United States, Comedy, Speculative fiction

2006 films
2006 comedy films
2000s American films
2000s English-language films
2000s fantasy comedy films
2000s science fiction comedy films
American fantasy comedy films
American science fiction comedy films
Columbia Pictures films
Fiction about time
Films about architects
Films about divorce
Films about dysfunctional families
2000s films about time travel
Films directed by Frank Coraci
Films produced by Adam Sandler
Films produced by Jack Giarraputo
Films produced by Neal H. Moritz
Films scored by Rupert Gregson-Williams
Films set in New Hampshire
Films set in New York City
Films set in the future
Films set in the 1960s
Films set in the 1970s
Films set in the 1980s
Films set in the 1990s
Films set in 2006
Films set in 2007
Films set in 2017
Films set in 2023
Films set in 2029
Films set in the 2000s
Films set in the 2010s
Films set in the 2020s
Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award–winning films
Happy Madison Productions films
Original Film films
Revolution Studios films
English-language science fiction comedy films
English-language fantasy comedy films