If we had to guess what the highest grossing films of 2011 would be back in January, I’d think we’d be able to get the list about 80% right. We might have substituted Green Lantern for Fast Five, maybe Kung Fu Panda 2 for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but we could probably guess the rest.
Which isn’t to say that the list isn’t surprising. This year’s list of top grossing films tells us something surprising about the state of the cinema today and where it will go in the future. All we have to do is look at the connections.

Numbers accurate as of 10:30 pm, December 15th.

1. The entire list tells us that foreign grosses are very important these days: Overseas grosses were once icing on the cake. A nice addition, but not quite as important as domestic grosses. Not anymore. Each of the Top Ten films have grossed more internationally than they did domestically (sometimes two or three times more). Each and every film had their production budget covered by their foreign grosses (Transformers: Dark of the Moonmade it’s $195 million budget back from Foreign grosses in its first weekend–and then some!). The foreign market can now make or break a film. This is why most producers of blockbusters create these films with an eye on how they would do overseas.
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 show that the literary blockbuster is going out with a bang–maybe: The Harry Potter and Twilight franchises are on opposite poles when it comes to quality, both in book form and on the screen. But both have rabid fanbases that guaranteed that every film in the line would sell gangbusters. But, unfortunately for Warner Brothers and Summitt Entertainment, this year marks the end of the Harry Potter franchise and the penultimate installment of the Twilight one. It is unlikely that any literary adaptations, even the eagerly awaited The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Hunger Games adaptations in the pipeline, will match the success of these two. It’s an end of an era.
3. The Hangover Part II shows that originality might officially be dead: Some of you might say that the whole list tells you this. After all, the two movies that aren’t sequels are comic book adaptations and the highest grossing “original” film, Bridesmaids, could only reach as high as #12. But  The Hangover Part II takes lack of originality to a new level. It was essentially the same film as The Hangover. It had the same premise, the same plot points, and the same ending. Well, not exactly the same. Ed Helms has a facial tattoo instead of a missing tooth and they have to take a Buddhist monk back to his home instead of a baby, but the films were essentially the same. I have nothing against sequels that continue a story. But to simply rehash the same formula, note for note, shows how far the sequel has fallen. And the fact that it was such a success means that we might see more of these carbon copy sequels in the future.
4. Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger prove that the comic book film, at least ones from Marvel, isn’t dead…yet: Granted, both films grossed less than Iron Man did in his first go around, but each film–with foreign grosses added–were able to make a sizable profit, enough to warrant sequels for both. Both were fairly well reviewed. We might have to hold off a final judgement until we see how The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and The Man of Steel do before we can definitively prove the genre healthy, but it certainly ain’t dead yet.
5. Transformers: Dark of the Moon, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, The Hangover Part II, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and Cars 2 prove that a film doesn’t have to be good to be successful: The above five films have an average Fresh rating of 34% over at Rotten Tomatoes.com, the review aggragate site. The site considers 60% or above to be a good film, just to put in perspective how poorly reviewed these films really are. So if you’re the type of person who hates that Hollywood keeps putting out crap year in and year out, well, don’t hate Hollywood. Hate your friends and neighbors who see sparkly vampires and robots beating the grease out of one another again and again.
6. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a sign that reboots can work, so expect to see more of them: 2001′s Planet of the Apes was supposed to be the film to reboot the franchise. And while it did make a profit, the was critically panned. The reboot was deemed a failure. However, the trend in Hollywood today is that if at first a reboot does not succeed, reboot again. This time around, reviews were better and the money was still there, so it appears that the second time was a charm. Don’t think Hollywood didn’t notice, and be on the look out for more reboots and reboots of reboots in the future.
7. Fast Five says that there is an alternative to reboots–going back to basics: 2006′s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift was supposed to be a new direction for the franchise, if not a complete reboot. It grossed the least amount of an F&F film, and the franchise appeared to be dead. 2009′s Fast & Furious reunited the principals from the first film and revitalized the franchise, and this fifth installment was the highest grossing yet. There are plans for a Fast Six and a Fast Seven to be shot back to back. So, in some cases, the best reboot is no reboot at all.
8. Cars 2 shows a chink in the Pixar armor: The film was the lowest domestic grossing Pixar film since 1998′s A Bug’s Life. And it was the poorest reviewed Pixar film of all time. For other studios and genres, this would not be that much of a problem. However, Pixar has set the standard in CGI animation in both quality and popularity. It has come out with dead solid perfect films each and every time until now. So the performance of this film, more from a reviews standpoint than an earnings one, IS a cause for concern. This makes next year’s Brave, with its rather pedestrian sword and sorcery plot that wouldn’t normally be a question of how Pixar would execute it, a more dicey proposition, one that could decided where this year was a blip on the radar or the start of a decline.

Chart courtesy of BoxOfficeMojo.com

We continue our look back at the cinematic decade that has just passed with a look at the company that redefined film animation, Pixar.

It’s true that the era of Pixar started in the 1990s, when the company produced three films: 1995′s Toy Story, 1998′s A Bug’s Life, and 1999′s Toy Story 2. But the Aughts were when the animation studio became an overwhelming force in not just film animation, but at the box office as well.

Pixar has changed the world of films forever. At the start of the decade, computer generated animation was a rarity. Now, cel-based animation, such as last year’s The Princess and the Frog, are novelties. At the start of the decade, there was only Pixar and fledgling Dreamworks (which also started in the 90s with 1998′s Antz) in the field. Now, Dreamworks has become a powerhouse to rival Pixar, and other outlets such as Sony Pictures Imageworks and The Weinstein Group in producing CGI fare. Before, if you got one CGI animated film a year, it would be a lot. Now, each year features a multitude of CGI animated films for your movie going enjoyment.

But what separates Pixar from the rest is the quality of their output. They appear to never be a company that settles for being as good as they can be. They strive to be better. And that results in them accepting challenges and advancing technology to suit their needs. Look no further than their first offering of the decade, 2001′s Monsters, Inc. Consider the lead character, a furry monster named Sully. In order to capture the look of the character, Pixar’s animators had to painstakingly animate every hair on the monster and in such a way that it would appear natural. This attention to detail is one of the reasons why they are a leader in the field.

The focus on quality doesn’t just involve the technical, but also extends to the storytelling as well. On paper, films about the monster in your closet told from the monster’s point of view, a trash collecting robot on an abandoned Earth, and a rat that loves to cook haute cuisine might not seem like scintillating cinematic fare, but in Pixar’s hands it became great film magic. They have a unique ability to bring the most out of any concept, and tap into a sense of whimsy and wonder unlike anything seen since, well, Disney’s heyday in the 30s and 40s.

As the decade went on, Pixar became one of the most artistically solid film producers of the decade. Take 2008′s Wall*E, which featured the first 30 minutes devoid of almost any dialogue or last year’s Up, where a couple’s life together from childhood to late adulthood was captured in about a 10 minute wordless montage.  This kind of film making is almost impossible to pull off even in live-action. Pixar made it look easy and told more story on both occasions than other filmmakers did with full-length features.

While Pixar films have been critically well-received (the lowest rated at Rotten Tomatoes was Cars at respectable 75% fresh, the rest received no lower than a 95% rating), they have also been financial successes. Each Pixar film released in the past decade made it’s way into the top 10 grossing films of each particular year, with the lowest (again, Cars) making $461 Million worldwide.

The success of Pixar critically and commercially might have also had an affect on the Academy Awards. In 2002, the award ceremony added a category for Best Animated Feature. All of Pixar’s films released in the decade have been nominated for the award, and it has won four out of the eight Oscar’s given out in the category ( for Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Wall*E). Critics of the new category have complained that it was only created to keep the Pixar films out of the Best Picture race. That argument will be tested this year as the number of nominees for Best Picture are risen to 10. If Up doesn’t get a nomination in the main category, then this argument will gain more weight.

On the business side of things, Pixar’s relationship with its parent company, Disney, start at the beginning of the decade as contentious to say the least. Squabbles over the number of films included in their agreement and release dates for the films caused Pixar to announce that they were ending their partnership with Disney in 2004. After several less-than stellar in-house CGI films developed, Disney eventually bought out Pixar in 2006, allowing the company to remain its own identity and placing Pixar bigwigs in charge of all of Disney’s animation efforts.

The next two years might be risky creatively, but most likely not financially, for Pixar as they release a second sequel to Toy Story on June 18th of this year and a sequel to Cars in June of 2011. They return to original projects in 2012 with The Bear and the Arrow and Newt set for release that year. So it looks like Pixar is set with film releases until the end of time, if the rumors about 2012 are correct.

The Aughts were a great decade for Pixar. They established a domination over a new breed of animation that they helped perfect. They have produced consistently excellent product again and again, and have become one of the last bastions of creativity in Hollywood. It was a great decade for Pixar, yet we’re the ones that reaped the benefits.