Heavy Metal /

Heavy Metal is a 1981 Canadian animated film from executive producer Leonard Mogel, who was also the publisher of Heavy Metal magazine. With Ivan Reitman producing and Gerald Potterton directing, the work was expedited by having several animation houses working simultaneously on different segments, including CinéGroupe and Atkinson Film-Arts. The film is an anthology of various science fiction and fantasy stories adapted from Heavy Metal magazine and original stories in the same spirit. Like the magazine, the film has a great deal of graphic violence, nudity, and sexuality. A stand-alone homage titled Heavy Metal 2000 was released in 2000. The movie's title sequence story (based on the original story by Dan O'Bannon and art by Thomas Warkentin) opens with a space shuttle flying in orbit over Earth. The bay doors (on the belly of the shuttle) open, releasing a 1960 Corvette. An astronaut seated in the Corvette then begins descending through Earth's atmosphere, landing in a desert canyon.