Night at the Museum


Night at the Museum is a 2006 fantasy-comedy film directed by Shawn Levy and written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. It is based on the 1993 children's book of essentially the same name, by Croatian illustrator Milan Trenc. The film stars Ben Stiller as Larry Daley, a divorced father who applies for a job as a night watchman at New York City's American Museum of Natural History and subsequently discovers that the exhibits, animated by a magical Egyptian artifact, come to life at night. 20th Century Fox released the film on December 22, 2006, and it grossed $577 million. Two sequels were released: ' in 2009, and ' in 2014. A remake is in development for the streaming service Disney+.

Plot

Larry Daley is a divorced man who has been unable to keep a stable job and has failed at many business ventures. His ex-wife Erica believes that he is a bad example to their ten-year-old son Nick, and Larry fears that Nick respects his future stepfather, bond trader Don, more than him.
Cecil Fredricks, an elderly night security guard about to retire from the American Museum of Natural History, hires Larry despite his unpromising résumé. The museum, which is rapidly losing money, plans to replace Cecil and his two colleagues Gus and Reginald with one guard. Cecil gives Larry an instruction booklet on how to handle museum security, advises Larry to leave some of the lights on, and warns him not to let anything "in......or out".
Once night falls, Larry discovers that the exhibits come to life, including a playful Tyrannosaurus skeleton nicknamed "Rexy" who behaves like a dog, a mischievous capuchin monkey named Dexter, rival miniature civilizations led by Old West cowboy Jedediah and Roman general Octavius, abusive, limb-ripping Attila the Hun, an Easter Island Moai obsessed with "gum-gum", and a wax model of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt explains that since an Egyptian artifact — the Golden Tablet of Pharaoh Ahkmenrah — came to the museum in 1952, all of the exhibits come to life each night. If the exhibits are outside the museum during sunrise, they turn to dust. Roosevelt helps Larry by restoring order, but only for one night.
Larry quits the next morning, not wanting a job that is life-threatening. However, he sees Nick coming to see him at work, where he offers Nick a tour of the museum. After seeing Nick's interest in his job, Larry decides to remain as a night guard. When Larry tells Cecil about how Dexter tore up his instructions, Cecil advises him to study history to prepare himself for his nightly duties. He also learns more from a museum docent Rebecca Hutman, who is writing a dissertation on Sacagawea, but does not feel she knows enough about her subject.
The next night, Larry uses what he has learned to better control the exhibits. However, things go wrong anyway and four Neanderthals set fire to a display and some other things. One of the Neanderthals turns into dust after escaping from the museum at dawn, leading to a street sweeper truck to clean up his remains. The next morning, museum director Dr. McPhee almost fires Larry after what had happened to the Neanderthal exhibit until Larry begs him to reconsider. Larry offers Rebecca a meeting with Sacagawea, but she believes that he is mocking her and the museum.
Larry brings Nick to the museum to show him the exhibits, but strangely none of them are coming to life. They find Cecil, Gus, and Reginald stealing the tablet and other valuable objects. Like the exhibits, the guards receive enhanced vitality from the artifact; wishing to retain their youth, health and to fund their retirements, the three plan to frame Larry for the thefts. They have also disabled the tablet to stop the exhibits from interfering. With his father's encouragement, Nick reactivates the tablet, and runs away with the artifact in tow. After a chase ensues throughout the museum, Cecil locks up Nick and his father in the Egyptian room and steals back the tablet. Larry releases Ahkmenrah's mummy from his sarcophagus. The pharaoh speaks English from many years as an exhibit at Cambridge, and helps Larry and Nick escape. The three find the other exhibits fighting; Larry confronts Attila, realizing his behavior came from being hurt a long time ago when he was very young, resulting in Larry comforting a sobbing Attila while singing a lullaby to him, and convinces the exhibits to work together.
The exhibits capture Gus and Reginald without difficulty, but Cecil escapes by stagecoach. In doing so, he almost runs Sacagawea over, but instead slices Teddy in half when he shoves her out of the way. Cecil continues to escape with Larry, Nick, Ahkmenrah, Jed, Octavius, Rexy, and Atilla the Hun in pursuit in Central Park, where they stop him and regain the tablet. Jed and Octavius crash their remote-controlled Hummer, but they somehow survive. And Teddy is fixed by Sacagawea with warm wax. Rebecca sees the exhibits return to the museum before sunrise and realizes that Larry was telling the truth; he introduces her to Sacagawea. McPhee almost fires Larry again after seeing news reports of the strange events around the museum — such as cave paintings in the museum's subway station, dinosaur footprints in Central Park, and cavemen sightings. However, upon seeing how much these events raised attendance, he reconsiders and allows Larry to keep his job. Larry, Nick, and the exhibits celebrate the following night and throw a huge party for everyone.
During the credits, it is shown that Cecil, Gus and Reginald were not handed over to the authorities and are now working as janitors at the museum, cleaning up after the party.

Cast

Humans

The building featured in the film, which was constructed on a sound stage in Burnaby, British Columbia, is based on the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, external shots of which were used in the movie.
Trainers spent several weeks training Crystal, who plays the troublemaking monkey Dexter, to slap and bite Stiller in the film.
Director Shawn Levy credited Ben Stiller for the ensemble cast: "When actors hear that Ben Stiller is in a movie they want to work with him. It a high-water mark and it absolutely draws actors in and I'm convinced that's a big part of why we got this cast."

Music

Songs

replaced John Ottman as score composer. Silvestri's score was used for the teaser trailer of Horton Hears a Who!

Track list

released a soundtrack album of the score on December 19, 2006.

Release

Night at the Museum had its premiere in New York City on December 17, 2006, on December 22, 2006 in the United States, December 26, 2006 in UK, January 12, 2007 in Brazil, on February 14, 2007 in China and on March 17, 2007 in Japan.

Reception

Box office

At the end of its box office run, Night at the Museum earned a gross of $250.9 million in the US and Canada and $323.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $574.5 million. It was the fifth highest-grossing film of 2006 and also the highest-grossing film worldwide of the trilogy.
It was the highest-grossing film in its opening weekend, grossing $30.8 million plating in 3,686 theaters, with a $8,258 per-theater average. For the four-day Christmas holiday weekend, it took in $42.2 million. The movie was also released in IMAX large screen format, often on site at museums of science or natural history such as the Pacific Science Center in Seattle.
In its second weekend, Night at the Museum expanded into 83 more theaters and took in approximately $36.7 million, out-grossing its opening weekend. It maintained the top position in its third week, with an additional $23.7 million.
During its opening weekend of December 22, 2006, the film grossed a figure of estimated $5 million, with the highest debut coming from South Korea. The biggest market in the other territories were the UK, Japan, South Korea, and Germany, where it grossed $40.8 million, $30 million, $25.7 million, $22.9 million.

Critical reaction

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 43% based on 132 reviews and an average rating of 5.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Parents might call this either a spectacle-filled adventure or a shallow and vapid CG-fest, depending on whether they choose to embrace this on the same level as their kids". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 48 out of 100 based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
James Berardinelli of Reelviews gave it 2 stars out of 4, and commented on Stiller's performance by stating "It might be fair to give Ben Stiller an 'A' for effort, but to call what he does in this movie 'acting' is a misnomer. He does a lot of running around, occasionally falling down or bumping into things." One positive review by William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, gave it a B-, and stated that the film was "Out to impress and delight a family audience with the pageantry of human and natural history, and that's a surprisingly worthy ambition for a Hollywood comedy." Museum officials at the American Museum of Natural History have credited the film for increasing the number of visitors during the holiday season by almost 20%. According to a museum official, between December 22, 2006, and January 2, 2007, there were 50,000 more visitors than during the same period the prior year. CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema audiences gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.

Home media

The film was released on a 2-Disc DVD edition in the United Kingdom on April 2, 2007. It was released on 1-Disc and 2-Disc DVD editions and Blu-ray Disc format on April 24, 2007 elsewhere.
The film became the first non-Disney film to be reviewed by Ultimate Disney, due to the website dealing with other studios besides Disney.
, the film has sold 9,191,694 DVDs and grossed $153,566,058 in DVD sales.

Awards

Sequels

Night at the Museum was followed by a sequel titled ', which was released on May 22, 2009 in North America. A third film, ', was released on December 19, 2014 in North America.
In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter stated that the Alibaba Pictures Group intended to remake the film. On August 7, 2019, Disney stated they were to remake Home Alone, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Night at the Museum for their Disney+ streaming service.