'Arthur' is out — Oscar animation race shrinks to three
"Arthur and the Invisibles" has been disqualified from the Oscar race for best animated feature, according to Pete Hammond at
HollywoodWiretap.com. The reason: it doesn't have 75 percent CGI/animation. The news is catastrophic for the Oscar race, which just barely met the requirement of having 16 eligible films needed for the category to have 5 nominees. Now that the field shrinks to 15, there will only be 3 movies in the category. Expect Sony Pictures Classics to be really ticked off about this. Even though "Paprika" doesn't open wide to theaters till next May, the studio gave it a qualifying run now because it looked like the race would have five nominees, thus giving "Paprika" a better chance to make the cut. No doubt the studios behind a few other animated flicks thought so, too, and hurried up their production and release skeds.
Hammond reports that most experts believe the three animation Oscar finalists will be "Cars," "Happy Feet" and "Monster House." That sounds like a good guess to me.
Photo: Weinstein Co.
With two films in contention and a a dominance in the field as it is, no way will Dreamworks be left off. Over the Hedge is a better bet than Monster House.
Posted by: Kristopher Tapley | January 07, 2007 at 08:04 PM
Good. Honestly, percentage wise it should be 3 either way. Animated films haven't xactly been pectacular the past couple of years give or take a small handful of them. We don't get 10+ nominees in the film category (of which there are many more qualifying contenders) so why should animation get 5 nominees then?
Posted by: True Tenor | January 07, 2007 at 06:35 PM
Sorry for the bad news for this particular film, but it is just and fair to have but 3 nominees for Best Animated Film. Ridiculous to have one-third of the films made be nominated for an Academy Award.
Posted by: Logan69 | January 07, 2007 at 06:31 PM
Yeah, there goes my hopes that "A Scanner Darkly" can get nominated. That movie was amazing, and I don't see why the animated race has to only include family films. "Scanner" was animation brilliance.
Posted by: Jeff | January 07, 2007 at 04:44 PM
Why can't A Scannder Darkly be included in the potential nominees? Why does it have to be dwindled to three? :-(
Posted by: Seth | January 07, 2007 at 03:03 PM