American Reunion

American Reunion
Theatrical release poster mirrors that of the 1999 film
Directed by	Jon Hurwitz Hayden Schlossberg
Written by	Jon Hurwitz Hayden Schlossberg
Based on	Characters created by Adam Herz
Produced by	Chris Moore Craig Perry Adam Herz Warren Zide
Starring	Jason Biggs Alyson Hannigan Chris Klein Thomas Ian Nicholas Tara Reid Seann William Scott Mena Suvari Eddie Kaye Thomas Jennifer Coolidge Eugene Levy
Cinematography	Daryn Okada[1]
Edited by	Jeff Betancourt[1]
Music by	Lyle Workman
Production companies	Relativity Media Zide/Perry Productions
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	April 6, 2012 (2012-04-06) (United States)
Running time	113 minutes[2]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$50 million[2]
Box office	$235 million[2]

American Reunion (also known as American Pie 4: Reunion or American Pie: Reunion in certain countries^[3]) is a 2012 American romantic sex comedy film written and directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg. It is the fourth and final installment in the American Pie theatrical series. The film's ensemble cast features many actors who reprise their roles from the previous three films, including Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Chris Klein, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Seann William Scott, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Eugene Levy, Tara Reid, and Mena Suvari, among others. The film follows former East Great Falls High School classmates who return to their hometown for a reunion for their graduating class.^[4]

Released in the United States on April 6, 2012, American Reunion received generally mixed reviews from critics, but was a worldwide box office success, grossing $235 million against a $50 million budget.

Nine years after getting married,^[a] Jim Levenstein and his wife Michelle are in a sexual rut following the birth of their infant son. Kevin Myers is a househusband and architect, Chris "Oz" Ostreicher is a celebrity sportscaster dating Mia, a superficial supermodel, and Paul Finch has been traveling the world. The four friends return from their disparate locations to East Grand Falls, Michigan, for their thirteen year high school reunion, and are joined by Steven Stifler, their obnoxious friend whom they hoped to avoid.

The group spends the next day at the lake with Michelle and her old Band Camp friend Selena, whom Finch bonds with over his travels. Kevin and Oz reunite with their high school girlfriends Vicky and Heather, and meet Heather's boyfriend Ron. AJ, a young thug, steals bikini tops from Mia and other women before fleeing on a jetski. Seeking revenge, the boys trace AJ and his friends to a beach where Jim overhears his plans to take the virginity of Kara—Jim's neighbor whom he used to babysit—now she has turned 18. Stifler destroys their jetskis before fleeing.

Instead of spending time with Michelle, Jim accompanies the others to the Falls to reminisce about high school, where they come across teens partying for Kara's birthday. Unsatisfied with Heather, Ron suggests swapping girlfriends for sex to a disgusted Oz. Kara drunkenly tries to seduce Jim, but he reluctantly rejects her. She passes out and Jim recruits Stifler, Finch, and Oz to distract her parents while he sneaks her into their house, worried Michelle will think he cheated on her. Jim returns home and falls asleep without having sex with Michelle, leaving her despondent about their failing marriage. The following morning, Kevin wakes up in bed with Vicky and assumes they had drunken sex. She confirms they did not but is upset he thinks so lowly of her.

Jim encourages his widower dad, Noah, to begin dating, and takes him to Stifler's house party where he meets Stifler's mother Jeanine. After Oz is deliberately embarassed by Ron, he admits he misses Heather and kisses her. Mia finds out and breaks up with Oz, confessing to her own affair. Jim waits upstairs for Michelle so they can have sex, but Kara again tries to seduce him before AJ intervenes, and a fight ensues. Jim explains the situation to Michelle and states he does not care about Kara, causing both women to leave upset. The police arrive and arrest Finch for stealing a motorbike. Stifler mocks Finch's predicament, and the boys confront him over being a bad friend and his inability to move on from high school. Stifler reminds them that they have ignored and avoided him for years.

The next day, Noah offers Jim advice on repairing his marriage. At the reunion, Finch admits that he lied about his travels because he was embarassed to admit that he had a normal job as a retail manager, and stole the bike from his neglectful boss. Feeling guilty about their treatment of Stifler, the boys visit him at work and apologize, recognizing his unhappiness with his life and admitting that none of their lives are perfect, but that Stifler is their friend. Stifler confronts his verbally abusive boss and quits.

The group returns to the reunion together. Kevin reconciles with Vicky and introduces her to his wife, Finch makes amends for lying to Selena, and Oz and Heather choose to be together. Stifler is offered work as a wedding planner, and also meets and has sex with Finch's mother Rachel. Jim makes up with Michelle and they have sex in the school's music room.

The boys meet up the following day: Oz reveals he is staying in town with Heather; Finch intends to tour Europe with Selena; and Jim apologizes to Kara, who plans to save her virginity for a good man like him. Kevin proposes a pact for the group to meet up every year from now on.

In October 2008, Universal Pictures announced it was planning to produce a fourth theatrically released sequel to the first film.^[5] In April 2010, the film entered pre-production, with Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg signing on to write and direct with plans to reunite the whole cast of the primary series.^[6]

In March 2011, it was announced that Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott and Eugene Levy had signed on to reprise their roles.^[7] Biggs and Scott were granted executive producer credits and also helped convince the other previous cast members to return.^[8] In April 2011, Alyson Hannigan, Chris Klein, and Mena Suvari signed on.^[9][10][11] The following month, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Tara Reid, Eddie Kaye Thomas,^[12] Shannon Elizabeth,^[13] and Jennifer Coolidge^[14] signed on. In June and July 2011, John Cho^[15] and Natasha Lyonne^[16] were the last returning cast to sign on.

On May 18, 2011, a casting call went out for the character "Kara", a role that involved "upper frontal nudity".^[17] Ali Cobrin was cast in the role. National Football League wide receiver Chad Ochocinco and actor Neil Patrick Harris have cameo roles.^[18][19]

Jason Biggs and Seann William Scott each received a reported $5 million plus a percentage of the profits for their performances. Alyson Hannigan and Eugene Levy were said to have been paid $3 million each, with the rest of the cast receiving payments within the $500,000 to $700,000 range, except Tara Reid, who was paid $250,000.^[20]

On a budget of $50 million,^[21] principal photography took place from early June to August 2011 in metro Atlanta, Georgia.^[13][22] In late June, filming took place at Conyers, Monroe and Woodruff Park.^[19][23] While in Conyers, filming took place at Heritage High School’s football stadium and band room. Production filmed at Newton High School in Covington from July 11 to July 15. Scenes were filmed at the school's gym for a reunion prom set, football field, commons area and hallways; which included 200 extras. Under the deal the production company paid $10,000 to the Newton County School System for using the school.^[23]

During the last week of July, production moved to Cumming to film at Mary Alice Park on Lake Lanier and included about 100 extras.^[24] Moore said the beach at the lake looks similar to a Lake Michigan setting, which is the state in which the film is set. The production company paid $23,000 to have full access to the property for a week.^[24] Suvari finished filming her scenes on August 4.^[25]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[26]

The two score tracks were recorded by a 60-70 piece orchestra conducted by John Ashton Thomas who also orchestrated Workman's score for the orchestral sessions. The orchestra was recorded at the Eastwood Scoring Stage at the Warner Bros. lot by Shawn Murphy who also mixed the score.

American Reunion was released in North American theaters on April 6, 2012.

The DVD and Blu-ray discs were released on July 10, 2012 in North America.^[27] The film was also released in a box set titled the "American Pie Quadrilogy" on August 22, 2012 in Australia. The theatrical version was available on iTunes a few days ahead of time, as an "Early Digital Release". It was released on September 10, 2012 in the United Kingdom.^{[citation needed]}

American Reunion opened in North America on April 6, 2012 in 3,192 theaters for a weekend total of $21,514,080, putting it at number 2 at the box office behind The Hunger Games.^[28] On its second week of release, it dropped to number 5 at the box office with a weekend total of $10,473,810.^[29]

The film earned $56,758,835 in North America and $177,978,063 internationally, for a worldwide total of $234,736,898.^[2]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 45% based on 186 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "It'll provide sweetly nostalgic comfort food for fans of the franchise, but American Reunion fails to do anything truly new or interesting – or even very funny – with the characters."^[30] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 49 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[31] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.^[32]

According to Roger Ebert, who gave the film three out of four stars:^[33]

The charm of American Pie was the relative youth and naïveté of the characters. It was all happening for the first time, and they had the single-minded obsession with sex typical of many teenagers. American Reunion has a sense of déjà-vu, but it still delivers a lot of nice laughs. Most of them for me came thanks to Stifler... If you liked the earlier films, I suppose you gotta see this one. Otherwise, I dunno.

The Village Voice concludes its review with the following:^[34]

After some strained "Remember the time..." callbacks to 13-year-old gags, American Reunion gets comfortable and funny, as Hurwitz and Schlossberg hit familiar marks from unexpected angles, while the ensemble interplay is "routine" in the best sense of the word. Taken altogether, the Pie movies offer a cohesive worldview, showing each of life's stages as the setting for fresh-yet-familiar catastrophes, relieved by a belief in sex, however ridiculous it might look, as a restorative force. The recipe is so durable and the sustained character work so second-skin by now, one can imagine the Pie films keeping with the dramatis personae through middle age and into the problems of geriatric love, a raunch-comic version of Britain's documentary Up series. American Midlife Crisis? American Retirement? American Funeral? Let's go!

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave American Reunion a positive review of two and half stars out of four saying, "American Reunion reminds us what we liked about the original: the way the movie sweetened its raunch to build a rooting interest in these characters."^[35]

In August 2017, Seann William Scott said in an interview that the fourth film probably had not made enough at the domestic box office to warrant another film.^[37] In August 2018, Tara Reid said she met with the directors, with them saying that the fifth film will happen, and that filming could begin soon.^[38] In September 2022, it was announced that Universal 1440 was developing another spin off American Pie Presents movie with Sujata Day.^[39]

Wikiquote has quotations related to American Reunion.

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• American Reunion at Metacritic