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The Movies is a business simulation game created by Lionhead Studios for Microsoft Windows and subsequently ported to Mac OS X by Feral Interactive. It was released on November 8, 2005 in North America, and November 11, 2005 in Europe after reaching gold status on October 8, 2005.

The game allows players to take the role of a Hollywood film mogul, running a studio and creating films. Much has been made about the film-making aspect of the game, as it allows players to easily create viewable works or machinima. The game is similar to the early 1990s film production game Stunt Island; the game is also similar to the 1988 game Charlie Chaplin, the 1996 game Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair and, to a lesser extent, the 1995 game 3D Movie Maker.

On 6 June 2006, the first, and to date, only expansion pack was released, The Movies: Stunts and Effects. This expansion added a host of new features, among which were stunts (and stunt doubles), and special effects, as well as the ability to designate custom camera angles.

This game is also available on the Mac. The Mac port of the game was published by Feral Interactive and developed by Robosoft Technologies. It has won the Best Video Game Simulation Award at British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for the Mac specific features that have been incorporated in the game.

History

Production of The Movies began back in late 2001 in a Lionhead Studios brain-storming conference. The idea began when Peter Molyneux and a few other Lionhead Studios executives came up with a new idea for a simulation game inspired by the 1990s hit game Hollywood Mogul. However, the idea was to create a more diverse and lifelike strategy aspect to the game giving players the option to create their very own movie, a feature that Hollywood Mogul did not include. They announced the idea in April 2002 at E3 2002. The fan reaction was tremendous - The Movies booth was one of E3's most visited that year and many companies wanted to distribute the game. Lionhead Studios eventually chose Activision. The game took almost 4 years to make because of various changes to the graphic engine during production. It was finally released for Microsoft Windows in November 2005.

The game was originally going to be ported to PlayStation 2 and Xbox, but development of the console ports was halted immediately before acquisition of Lionhead by Microsoft. The game was officially cancelled on February 7, 2006. Poor sales was the reason cited for the cancellation. On February 8, 2006, Lionhead Studios announced that the console version may still be released, it just wouldn't be published by Activision. Some rumors have hinted that if it is released on consoles, it may see a release on next-gen systems: Wii, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

In October 2006, the Macintosh version by Feral Interactive won a Bafta for the best simulation game of 2006 at the Bafta games awards. The Macintosh version added a number of additional features which aren't available in the original PC release, including iPod & HD resolution video export modes, integration with Apple's iLife applications such as iTunes, iMovieHD and GarageBand, and an extra bonus utility. The game was also nominated in the soundtrack category, although it did not win.