2000s in film

The decade of the 2000s in film involved many significant developments in the film industries around the world, especially in the technology used. Building on advancements from the 1990s, computers were used to create effects that would have previously been more expensive, from the subtle erasing of surrounding islands in Cast Away to the vast battle scenes such as those in The Matrix sequels and 300. Trends The 2000s saw the resurgence of several genres. Fantasy film franchises dominated the box office with The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Star Wars prequel trilogy (beginning in 1999), The Chronicles of Narnia, etc. Comic book superhero films became a blockbuster genre following the releases of X-Men, Unbreakable and Spider-Man; culminating in the unprecedented achievements of The Dark Knight both in terms of revenue and acclaim. Gladiator similarly sparked the revival of historical epic films. In contrast, the Bollywood-inspired Moulin Rouge! did the same for live action musical films in the Western world, where Indian musicals such as Lagaan and Devdas also began gaining mainstream exposure. Hong Kong fight choreographers like Yuen Woo-ping continued their influence in Hollywood with such martial arts films as Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2, even leading to the spread of wire fu techniques into other subgenres, alongside filmmaker John Woo's gun fu from the likes of Mission: Impossible 2. The battle royale genre also began with the release of the Japanese film Battle Royale. Film categories that were generally not popular in North America became increasingly attractive to western moviegoers. Non-English language films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, The Passion of the Christ and Pan's Labyrinth; as well as documentary films like An Inconvenient Truth, March of the Penguins, Super Size Me and Fahrenheit 9/11; ended up being very successful. Computer animation replaced traditional animation as the dominant medium for animated feature films in American cinema (especially after the release of Shrek): DreamWorks Animation was the top animation studio in that decade, with Pixar and 20th Century Fox Animation following close behind (the latter after Fox Animation Studios was closed down on October 31, 2000). Further extending to the exploration of motion capture technology in such films as Robert Zemeckis' The Polar Express, Beowulf and A Christmas Carol.