The Blind Side (animated film)

The Blind Side is a 2019 computer-animated biographical action sports drama film written by John Lee Hancock, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and produced by Dan Lin and Roy Lee. A remake of The Blind Side (2009) and based on the 2006 book of the same name by Michael Lewis, the film tells the story of Michael Oher, an American football offensive lineman who overcame an impoverished upbringing to play in the National Football League (NFL) with the help of his adoptive parents Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy. The film stars the cast of the original 2009 film of the same name, consisting of Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron and Kathy Bates.

The film was produced with computer-animation by Toothpaste Animation Studios, Rhythm & Hues Studios and Bardel Entertainment, Inc., produced through Warner Animation Group and co-produced with Village Roadshow Pictures, Rideback and Alcon Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. for the original film's 10th anniversary. The film was a commercial success, grossing $892 million against a production budget of $126 million. It received mostly positive reviews from critics, with critics praising its animation, visual effects, voice cast (particularly Bullock, McGraw and Aaron), though some criticized its plot and its runtime. The film was nominated for the 2020 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but lost to Disney-Pixar's Toy Story 4.

Plot
Seventeen-year-old Michael "Big Mike" Oher has been in foster care with different families in Tennessee, due to his mother's drug addiction; and every time he is placed in a new home, he runs back to her. His friend's father, Tony "Big Tony" Hamilton, on whose couch Mike has been sleeping, asks Burt Cotton, the football coach of Wingate Christian School, to help enroll his son and Mike. Impressed by Mike's size and athleticism, Cotton gets him admitted despite his poor academic record. Later, Michael is befriended by a younger student named Sean Tuohy, Jr./"SJ". SJ's mother, Leigh Anne, is a strong-minded interior designer and the wife of wealthy businessman Sean Sr.

The school staff tells Michael that his father has died, apparently due to an accident. Later, Leigh Anne and Sean watch their daughter Collins playing volleyball. After the game, Sean notices Michael picking up leftover food on the bleachers. One night, Leigh Anne notices Michael walking alone on the road, shivering in the cold without adequate clothing. When she learns that he plans to spend the night huddled outside the closed school gym, Leigh Anne offers to let him sleep on the couch in the Tuohy home.

The next morning, Leigh Anne notices that Michael has left. Seeing him walking away, she asks him to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with her family. Later, Leigh Anne drives Michael to his mother's house. He sees an eviction notice posted on the door, indicating that his mother is gone. Slowly, Michael becomes a member of the Tuohy family; Leigh Anne's friends question this and suggest that Collins might not be safe around Michael, but Leigh Anne criticizes them. She later asks Collins how she feels about it. Collins replies that they cannot just throw Michael out. When Leigh Anne seeks to become Michael's legal guardian, she learns he was taken from his drug-addict mother when he was seven and that no one knows her whereabouts. She is also told that, although he scored poorly in a career aptitude test, he was ranked in the 98th percentile in "protective instincts". When Michael appears to be hesitant to use his strength and size while learning to play football, Leigh Anne tells him, as an offensive lineman, he must protect his quarterback, just like he intends to do to his family. From that moment, Michael improves dramatically, well enough to play at the college level. However, to do that, he must meet the minimum grade point average to get in so the Tuohys hire a private tutor for him, the outspoken and kind Miss Sue.

Leigh Anne has a face-to-face conversation with Michael's mother about adopting him. Although she seems unresponsive in the beginning, the mother finally wishes Michael the best. Michael is heavily recruited by many prestigious schools. SJ talks to coaches and negotiates on Michael's behalf—and his own. When Michael gets his grades high enough, he decides to attend the University of Mississippi (known colloquially as "Ole Miss"). But as Ole Miss was where Sean Sr. had played basketball, Leigh Anne had been a cheerleader, and Miss Sue had been as well, NCAA investigator Granger is tasked to look into the matter to determine if the Tuohys took him in and unduly influenced him just so he would play for their alma mater.

Michael runs away before the interview is over and confronts Leigh Anne about her motives for taking him in. He then proceeds to find his biological mother in Hurt Village. A gang leader welcomes him back, offers him a beer, and makes sexually offensive insinuations about Leigh Anne and Collins. When Michael gets angry, the gang leader threatens to go after them, and as a result, Michael battles with him and other thugs. After thinking things over and questioning Leigh Anne, Michael tells Granger he chose Ole Miss because "it's where my family goes to school." Michael is accepted into college and says his farewells to the Tuohy family.

The film ends with information about and photos of the real Tuohy family and Michael Oher, who went on to play in the National Football League. He was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft.

Cast

 * Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy, Michael's adoptive mother
 * Tim McGraw as Sean Tuohy, Michael's adoptive father
 * Quinton Aaron as Michael "Big Mike" Oher
 * Brandon Rivers as Young Mike
 * Kathy Bates as Miss Sue
 * Jae Head as Sean "S.J." Tuohy Jr., Michael's adoptive younger brother
 * Lily Collins as Collins Tuohy, Michael's adoptive younger sister
 * Ray McKinnon as Coach Cotton
 * Kim Dickens as Mrs. Boswell
 * Adriane Lenox as Denise Oher, Michael's biological mother
 * IronE Singleton as Alton, a gang leader/drug dealer

Production
Production on an animated remake of The Blind Side was in development in early 2017. The film was co-produced by Village Roadshow Pictures and Alcon Entertainment, with animation services by Warner Animation Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Its budget was around $126 million. Locations within the film, specifically Atlanta, Georgia, were present throughout the film. The film premiered in Toronto, Ontario on November 19, 2019 and was distributed in the United States and Canada on November 22.

The animation was produced at Warner Animation Group. The film was produced by Bardel Entertainment, Inc. in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was produced at Toothpaste Animation Studios in Bristol, England. Additional CG animation was produced by Rhythm & Hues Studios in Los Angeles.

Box office
The Blind Side opened with a strong performance at the box office, grossing $49.2 million in its opening weekend. The film grossed $306.6 million in the United States and Canada and $585.4 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $892 million.

Critical response
The Blind Side received mostly positive reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 87% based on reviews from 192 critics, with an average rating of 7.6 out of 10. Its critical consensus reads, "Inspired by a story by Michael Lewis and wonderfully animated, The Blind Side serves as a standalone perfect remake of the book, as well as its predecessor." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore assigned the film a rare grade of "A+" on its A+ to F scale.

Soundtrack
The film's score was composed by Carter Burwell and was released on CD.

Home media
The Blind Side was released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 25, 2020.

Warner Bros. Pictures released the film on HBO Max and Netflix as exclusive films on March 26, 2020. The view count on the HBO Max release was over 184 million, while Netflix's was 247 million.