It stars the voices of Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Jude Law, Isla Fisher, and Hugh Jackman.

The film tells a story about Guardians Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman, who enlist Jack Frost to stop the evil Pitch Black from engulfing the world in darkness in a fight of dreams.

Rise of the Guardians premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival on October 10, 2012, and was theatrically released in the United States on November 21.

Three centuries later, the Man in the Moon alerts Nicholas St. North to the return of Pitch Black, who threatens to plague children with nightmares.

North rallies his fellow Guardians, E. Aster Bunnymund, Sanderson Mansnoozie, and Toothiana, and they discover that Jack has been chosen to join their ranks.

Pitch distracts Jack long enough for the Nightmares to destroy all the eggs, causing children to stop believing in Bunny.

Jack realizes that his center is fun and uses it to gather Jamie's friends, play, and diminish their fear, which bolsters the Guardians and resurrects Sandy.

[3] Early in 2008, Joyce sold the film rights to DreamWorks Animation,[19] after the studio assured him it would respect his vision for the characters and that he would be involved with the creative process.

[21] The next month, Leonardo DiCaprio was announced to make his animated feature film debut as the lead character of the film—tentatively titled The Guardians—Jack Frost.

[9] Roger Deakins, the cinematographer who had already worked on the previous DreamWorks' film, How to Train Your Dragon, advised on the lighting to achieve its real look.

He selected photographic references for color keys, and during the production gave notes on contrast, saturation, depth of field and light intensity.

[27] For this, DreamWorks Animation developed OpenVDB, a more efficient tool and format for manipulating and storing volume data, like smoke and other amorphous materials.

OpenVDB had been already used on Puss in Boots and Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, and was released in August 2012 for free as an open-source project with a hope to become an industry standard.

[44] In July 2014, the film's distribution rights were purchased by DreamWorks Animation from Paramount Pictures and transferred to 20th Century Fox.

The website's critical consensus reads: "A sort of Avengers for the elementary school set, Rise of the Guardians is wonderfully animated and briskly paced, but it's only so-so in the storytelling department.

"[53] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter called the film "a lively but derivative 3D storybook spree for some unlikely action heroes.

"[3] Conversely, Justin Chang in Variety said, "Even tots may emerge feeling slightly browbeaten by this colorful, strenuous and hyperactive fantasy, which has moments of charm and beauty but often resembles an exploding toy factory rather than a work of honest enchantment.

"[54] Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal found that the film "lacks a resonant center," and that the script, "seems to have been written by committee, with members lobbying for each major character, and the action, set in vast environments all over the map, spreads itself so thin that a surfeit of motion vitiates emotion.

But due to the failure to gain a stable box office response, it heavily affected the studio's ability to release original movies.

The game is a 3D beat-em-up, where the player travels through each of the worlds: Burgess, North Pole, Bunnymund Valley, Tooth Palace and Sandman's Ship, to fight Pitch's army of Nightmares.

"[98] Author and co-producer of the series, William Joyce, also mentioned in March 2013 that he was still in talks about a sequel with DreamWorks Animation: "There is something that we are proposing that we hope they will want to do.