rio
"The bird who never learned to fly will discover a place he can soar."
―Tagline.
Rio-2011 blu jewel, rafeal ,pedro,nico on the Copacabana
Theatrical release poster
Rio
Directed by Carlos Saldanha
Produced by Bruce Anderson
John C. Donkin
Written by Carlos Agögretmen
Screenplay by Don Rhymer
Joshua Sternin
Jeffrey Ventimilia
Sam Harper
Story by Carlos Saldanha
Earl Richey Jones
Todd R. Jones
Narrated by
Voices Anne Hathaway
Jesse Eisenberg
will.i.am
Jamie Foxx
George Lopez
Tracy Morgan
Jemaine Clement
Leslie Mann
Rodrigo Santoro
Jake T. Austin
Music John Powell
Songs
Cinematography Renato Falcão
Studios Blue Sky Studios
20th Century Fox
Editing Harry Hitner
Distributor 20th Century Fox
Release date(s) March 22, 2011 (Brazil)
April 15, 2011 (North America)
Running time 96 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $90 million[1]
Gross $484,635,760
MPAA Rating G
Preceded by
Followed by Rio 2 (2014)
IMDb profile 1436562


Rio, (originally promoted as Rio: The Movie), is a 2011 American 3-D computer-animated musical comedy film, produced by Blue Sky Studios and directed by Carlos Saldanha. The title refers to the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, where the film is set. The film features the voices of Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg, will.i.am, Jamie Foxx, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, Jemaine Clement, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro, and Jake T. Austin. It tells the story of Blu (Jesse Eisenberg), a male Spix's macaw who is taken to Rio de Janeiro to mate with a female to save their species. He meets Jewel (Anne Hathaway), a free-spirited macaw. The two eventually fall in love, and together they have to escape from being smuggled by Nigel (Jemaine Clement), an evil cockatoo, and the smugglers, Marcel, Armando, and Tipa who are humans. It was a huge box office success earning $484,635,760 worldwide, well over the $90,000,000 budget that was set. The credits song, "Telling the World", was performed by Taio Cruz. The music video for which features parts of the film as Blu and Jewel fall for each other, and indeed for Blu, Jewel is the one to live for.

Saldanha developed his first story concept of Rio in 1995, in which a penguin is washed up in Rio. However, Saldanha learned of the production of the films, Happy Feet and Surf's Up, and changed the concept to involve macaws and their environments in Rio. He proposed his idea to Chris Wedge in 2006, and the project was set up at Blue Sky Studios. The main voice actors were approached in 2009. During production, the crew visited Rio de Janeiro, for inspiration for the animation to recreate the atmosphere and vibe of the city, and also consulted with an expert on macaws at the Bronx Zoo to study their behavior.

20th Century Fox released the film on March 22, 2011, in Brazil and on April 15, 2011, in the United States. The film received generally favorable reviews from film critics. Observers praised the visuals, voice acting, and music. The film was also a box office success, grossing over $484 million worldwide. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song, "Real in Rio", but lost to the another nominee, "Man or Muppet", from The Muppets.[2]

Plot

In Brazil, a Blue Macaw was sleeping in his nest when he wakes up he was seeing the birds singing real in rio while they’re celebrating Carnival. But when the blue macaw was about to fly, several exotic birds are smuggled out of the country. In Moose Lake, Minnesota, a crate with the male Spix's Macaw hatchling falls out of a truck and is found by a young girl, named Linda Gunderson, who names him "Blu". Over the course of 15 years, Linda takes care of Blu and grows up treating him as her true best friend and companion. Linda eventually owns a bookstore, named Blue Macaw Books and Blu continues to live very happily and comfortably with his human companion. However, as a result of living a secluded life in a bookstore, Blu is very intelligent, but is socially awkward and still unable to fly because his lifestyle with Linda made him not need to fly, he is also ridiculed by two Canada Goose named Alice & Chloe, who frequently visit outside of the bookstore.

One day, in late winter, an ornithologist named Tulio Monteiro, tells Linda that Blu is speculated to be the last male of his species and advises that she and Blu come with him to Rio de Janeiro in order for Blu to meet a recently-found female of his species. Although reluctant at first, Linda eventually accepts, and they later arrive in Rio. On the trip with Linda and Tulio to the aviary where the female macaw was being held, Blu meets a Red-crested Cardinal named Pedro and his Yellow Canary friend named Nico, who give Blu advice on how to attract a female. Tulio explains to Linda that they have arrived in time for Carnival, "the biggest party in the world". At the aviary, Blu meets and falls in love with the female Spix's macaw, Jewel. Blu, taking Nico and Pedro's advice, tries to attract Jewel by being a "crazy love-hawk" and tries to kiss her. However, Jewel becomes angry at him since they "just met". She begins to physically attack Blu; Linda and Tulio assume that they are mating, and decide to give them privacy. Tulio leaves a guard, named Sylvio, to watch over the macaws, as he and Linda leave the aviary to go eat dinner at a restaurant. Later, Sylvio is attacked and rendered unconscious by a "patient" of the aviary, a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo named Nigel, who lets an impoverished orphan boy named Fernando into the aviary. While the macaws continue to not get along well, they are kidnapped by Fernando, who works for a group of smugglers led by a man named Marcel, who wants to leave the country as soon as possible to secure a black market deal regarding Blu and Jewel. Fernando is paid a paltry sum and gets sent away by Marcel, and he starts to have second thoughts about his actions. After Blu and Jewel are chained together and locked up in a cage with many other captured exotic birds, Nigel sings a song to them about how he vowed to cause pain to all "pretty birds" after his role on a television program had been replaced by one. Meanwhile, at the restaurant, as Linda and Tulio talk about their love for birds, Tulio receives a call from the aviary, and he and Linda discover that Blu and Jewel were stolen, and they soon decide to search for the macaws themselves. Back at the smugglers' hideout, Blu uses his knowledge from his domestic life to open their cage, and they escape. Nigel, along with Marcel's henchmen Armando and Tipa pursue them, but Blu and Jewel are able to flee into the jungle. They then spend the night at Vista Chinesa.

After Linda and Tulio spend the night handing out and posting "Lost" posters for Blu, Fernando feels guilty about stealing the macaws, and later meets Linda and Tulio, to help them locate the missing birds. Meanwhile, Blu and Jewel meet a Toco Toucan's family. The father, named Rafael, assumes that Blu and Jewel are "love-birds" who are heading for Carnival. Jewel denies it by claiming that they are only "chained-to-each-other birds", and asks him for help in removing the chain attached to their legs. Rafael then offers to take them to his friend, Luiz, to help them remove the chain, with permission from his authoritative mate, Eva. After Rafael learns that Blu can't fly, he brings them to the edge of a cliff to try to teach him. Rafael advises Blu, "When you feel the rhythm of your heart, it's like samba. You fly!" As Jewel sprints towards the edge, Blu still refuses to fly, and the two fall off the cliff. However, they are inadvertently saved by a hang glider, and as they are riding atop the hang glider, Blu becomes mesmerized by the view of the city. Rafael follows them, and Blu claims to feel like he's flying. He decides to spread his wings, and Blu and Jewel are blown off of the hang glider. They continue to bounce off of other hang gliders, volleyball net and from a woman's large buttocks which wiggled from the impact. They eventually crash-land onto a beach. Rafael finds them and decides to abandon the flying lesson. Afterwards the three ride a fruit truck in order to reach the fruit market where they expect to meet Luiz. They later meet Nico and Pedro at the fruit market and are told that Luiz had already took a trolley back to his garage. Meanwhile, Nigel is sent by Marcel to locate Blu and Jewel. Nigel then hires a horde of thieving marmosets to capture the macaws.

 and  dancing at the .

Blu and Jewel dancing at the Samba Club.

Nico and Pedro take Blu and Jewel to a Rio-style party for birds, where they perform a duet, and Jewel begins to have feelings for Blu. However, the marmosets track them down and attack them. Their bird friends fight off the marmosets, then the five are able to flee onto a trolley that would lead to Luiz's garage, with the help of a Roseate Spoonbill named Kipo. Meanwhile, Linda and Tulio are taken to the smugglers' hideout by Fernando. They notice that Blu and Jewel are gone, and Fernando admits that he is the one who captured them. Suddenly, Marcel's henchmen Armando and Tipa are heard approaching the hideout. Linda and Tulio hide and they hear the smugglers explain to Fernando that they will use the Carnival parade to hide the smuggling of the birds to a secluded airport. Tipa then decides that Fernando should also come to the parade with them.

At sunset, during the trolley ride to the garage, Rafael, Nico, and Pedro try to make the ride as romantic as possible for Blu and Jewel. After Pedro tries to sing a rap song for them, Nico tells him that his song was too aggressive, and Nico then decides to sing a slow love song, while Rafael tries to get Blu to compliment Jewel. However, Blu speaks to her very awkwardly, and then accidentally chokes on a falling flower pedal, causing Jewel to give him the Heimlich maneuver, ultimately ruining the moment. Later that night, Blu and the others meet Luiz, who turns out to be a Bulldog. After Jewel gets upset with Luiz's "medical condition" of drooling, his feelings are hurt, and he is reluctant to help her. However, Rafael is able to convince him to help remove the chain attached to the macaws. Luiz then plans to cut off the chain with a table saw (which if the macaws did come into contact with the saw, would've killed them). However, Blu and Jewel are hesitant about his plan, and as they are being pushed into the saw by Luiz, Jewel flies upward and grabs an overhead lamp, with Blu dangling beneath her, just above the saw. Jewel lets go of the lamp, and the chain lands in Luiz's mouth, with Luiz's head hanging over the side of the table. His drool lubricates the chain, and Blu and Jewel's feet are able to slide out of the chain's cuffs. Jewel is very relieved to be free, and she immediately flies out of the garage and into the air to celebrate, along with Rafael, Nico, and Pedro. Blu is also happy to be free, but becomes disappointed that he cannot be with Jewel anymore, and walks away to find Linda. Jewel notices him, and questions why he is leaving. Blu claims that he can't spend his life following her wherever she goes, and Jewel stubbornly points out that this is because he can't fly. The two begin to argue and then decide to go their separate ways, though they are both secretly upset about this. Rafael follows Blu, and Nico and Pedro follow Jewel, to try to convince the couple to make up. However, Jewel is ambushed and captured by Nigel. When Blu and Rafael learn from Nico and Pedro that Nigel had captured Jewel, they rush to the Carnival parade to rescue her, with the help of Luiz. Meanwhile, Linda and Tulio organize a rescue attempt for the birds.

Linda and Tulio dress up as Blu and Jewel to pose as dancers and find the smugglers' float hidden within the parade. Meanwhile, Nigel uses Jewel as bait to lure in Blu and the others. As Luiz becomes distracted by the parade, the birds are able to find the smugglers' float. Linda notices Blu and tries to follow him with Tulio. However, Blu and his friends are kidnapped and caged inside the float, by Nigel. Later, in the early morning, Marcel and the other smugglers arrive at the airport and load all of the captured birds into the cargo hold of a plane. Fernando is caught trying to free Blu and Jewel, by Marcel, and Fernando is forced to run away. As the smugglers' plane is about to take off, Linda and Tulio attempt to stop the smugglers by driving a float towards their plane. However, the smugglers are able to take off, and Linda and Tulio become deeply saddened that they have failed to save the macaws. However, during the flight, Blu escapes his cage using a packing cord and a fire extinguisher; he straps one end of the packing cord hanging from the ceiling to the extinguisher and the other end to the top of his cage. He slams himself against the side of his cage to knock the extinguisher off of its rack. The weight of the falling extinguisher causes the top of his cage to pop open, and he breaks free. He releases all of the captive birds and pulls a switch to open the hatch of the plane. All of the birds, excluding Blu and Jewel, then escape the plane and fly away. However, as Jewel tries to comfort Blu over his fear of flying, Nigel attacks Blu. Jewel tries to help Blu, but Nigel throws her aside, making a cage fall onto Jewel's wing, injuring it. As Nigel mocks them and has Blu pinned down, Blu notices that the fire extinguisher was under pressure from the fall. He manages to hook the fire extinguisher onto Nigel and sets it off, sending Nigel flying out of the plane's cockpit and into one of the propellers, causing the plane to fall. The smugglers then flee the plane by jumping out with one parachute. Unable to fly, Jewel slips out of the plane and falls towards the ocean. Blu then jumps out of the plane to rescue her (remembering when he fell from his tree when he was a chick). Blu falls from the plane and manages to grab Jewel, Jewel asks him if he is crazy and what he is doing, Blu tells her that he wouldn't let her go because they were "chained-to-each-other birds", with this Jewel realizes that Blu loves her and she also loves him so she kisses him passionately. Blu begins to feel the "rhythm of his heart", which suddenly gives him the courage to fly. Blu carries Jewel as he is flying, and soon finds Linda, Tulio, and Fernando at the airport. Tulio notices Jewel's broken wing and later heals her over the course of a certain amount of time. Linda and Tulio soon organize a sanctuary to protect the jungle from smugglers, they become married and adopt Fernando and Linda opens a new bookstore, named Livraria Blu, in Rio. Blu and Jewel later become mates, raise three chicks, Carla, Bia and Tiago, together, and celebrate their new life in the jungle with their bird friends.

Meanwhile, Nigel is revealed to have survived the plane crash, but has lost most of his feathers and is ridiculed by the marmoset's leader, Mauro, whom Nigel threatened with "flying lessons" when he hired him and the other marmosets to capture Blu and Jewel. During the credits, it is also shown that the smugglers have been sent to prison.

Cast

Rio cast.

Rio cast.

Animals

Humans

Trivia

Easter Eggs

Altered or Removed Scenes from the film that are found in the Junior Novel

Sequels

Main article: Rio 2

Sérgio Mendes commented in January 2012 his nomination for Best Original Song, saying, that the film will most likely have a sequel and that Carlos Saldanha is planning it to be released in 2014 three to four months before the World Cup which will be held in Brazil.[4]

The plot of the sequel will tie into the 2014 FIFA World Cup, but the exact storyline has yet to be revealed by the film's producers. [5] Carlos Saldanha and Sérgio Mendes, along with others, met with each other a week after the film was announced, on February 1, 2012, to reveal the synopsis of the film to one another. [6] Sérgio Mendes will once again be creating new music for the sequel to the film, due to his Oscar nomination for his music in the first film. [7] Saldanha revealed that no deal for a script or deals have been made with studios about the film as of yet. [8] The sequel will be distributed by 20th Century Fox and animated by Blue Sky Studios.[9]

A spokesperson from 20th Century Fox has said that no deals with actors have been made yet [10], and that the studio is interested in turning Rio into a franchise, which hints at further sequels.

Gallery

Main article: Rio/Gallery

Videos

Behind the Scenes

Clips

Storyboards

References