The Best Animated Film category has been owned by Disney now for many years. The mouse house has won 15 of the last 21 Oscars in this category.
In general, US animation has been fairly week the last decade. This year, there are again some fairly tame contenders.Hopefully, upcoming films from Henry Selick and Guillermo del Toro will shake things up.
Selick’s “Wendell & Wild” could maybe build up an overdue narrative for the maestro. I also wonder how well “Pinocchio” will do. Guillermo del Toro’s stop motion adaptation looks really promising. He’s co-directing this one with “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” assistant director Mark Gustafson.
The lukewarm reception for “Lightyear” does have me wondering if it’ll even get in. Maybe the “same-sex kiss” controversy in many countries could have it benefitting from a political angle. The other Pixar, “Turning Red,” garnered far better reviews, but was very much a Disney Plus entity.
The last Pixar movie to not be nominated for the Animated Feature Oscar was “Cars 3” in 2017. So maybe both “Lightyear” and “Turning Red” get in, depending on how weak the animation slate has been this year.
I counted eight contenders for the five slots available in the Best Animated Film category: Turning Red, The Bad Guys, Lightyear, My Father’s Dragon, Wendell & Wild, Inu-Oh, Strange World and Pinocchio
Paul Greengrass’ "The Uprising," starring Andrew Garfield, opened to $3.2M from 2,068 theaters this weekend. Yikes. The budget hasn’t been disclosed, but is said to be in the $20-$30M range.