March 6, 2005 (Mann Village Theatre)
March 11, 2005 (United States)
Robots is a 2005 American animated science fiction adventure comedy film produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film is directed by Chris Wedge and co-directed by Carlos Saldanha from a screenplay by David Lindsay-Abaire and the writing team of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, based on a story conceived by Lindsay-Abaire, Ron Mita and Jim McClain. It stars the voices of Ewan McGregor, Halle Berry, Greg Kinnear, Mel Brooks, Amanda Bynes, Drew Carey and Robin Williams. The story follows an ambitious inventor robot named Rodney Copperbottom (McGregor), who seeks his idol Bigweld (Brooks) to work for his company in Robot City, but discovers a plot by its new leader Ratchet (Kinnear) and his mother (Jim Broadbent) to forcibly upgrade its populace and eradicate struggling robots, known as "outmodes".
Development on the film began in 2000, when Wedge and children's author William Joyce failed to adapt Joyce's 1993 children's book Santa Calls, thus scrapping the idea and instead doing a story on robots.
Robots premiered at the Mann Village Theatre in Westwood, Los Angeles, on March 6, 2005, and was released in the United States on March 11. The film received positive reviews from critics, who praised the film's humor and creativity, but generally deemed its story and characters to be somewhat unoriginal and forgettable. The film was commercially successful, grossing $262.5 million worldwide against a $75–80 million budget. A sequel was discussed but never produced due to the studio's heavier focus on its flagship franchise, Ice Age.
Storyline[]
In a world of sentient robots, striving young inventor Rodney Copperbottom (Ewan McGregor) wants to work for the avuncular Bigweld (Mel Brooks), whose Bigweld Industries makes spare robot parts. But Bigweld has just been deposed as company head by the villainous Phineas T. Ratchet (Greg Kinnear), who wants to make all robots submit to profitable forced upgrades. In this animated adventure, Rodney and his friend Fender (Robin Williams) go underground to fight Ratchet's evil plans.