Brad Bird's 1999 film focuses on Hogarth Hughes, a young boy growing up in 1950s America who befriends a robot from outer space but must defend him from discovery by the residents of his Maine town and from government forces who want to destroy the robot.
The movie is based on the 1968 novel "The Iron Man" by Ted Hughes, which finds a robot arriving in England and becoming close to a young boy, finally defending Earth by taking on a creature from space.
After "Giant" performed poorly at the box office, the film's studio, Warner Bros., was criticized for its lack of a promotional campaign for the movie. Tim McCanlies, the film's screenwriter, told the Austin Chronicle, "I wish that Warner had known how to release it." However, the studio heavily promoted the video release of the movie, including bringing in Congressmen Howard Berman, Ed Markey, and Mark Foley to support the movie. "The Iron Giant is one of those really good family films that manage to teach important values as part of an exciting story that kids love," Berman said in a statement at the time. "We need a lot more films like it."
