I feel like I’m so behind on the 2013 Oscar race and I say this as we are just entering June. Yeah, it’s become ridiculous, but that’s primarily because I’m working on a brand new back-end for my predictions and it’s taking a while to get things right. However, I can’t neglect the conversation as Kris Tapley over at HitFix posted a great piece yesterday previewing the Animated Feature slate for 2012 heading into the 2013 Oscar race, a race that looks to put last year’s to shame.
Last year Pixar was out of the race as Cars 2 didn’t hit home with the Academy just as it missed the mark with the majority of critics. This year they are coming back with the hotly anticipated Brave, a film I cannot wait to see and will actually be sitting down to watch in less than a week.
Disney also has a couple of features outside of Pixar with Tim Burton‘s black-and-white stop-motion feature Frankenweenie and Wreck-It Ralph of which we just saw a trailer debut earlier this morning.
Unfortunately, Disney’s release of The Secret World of Arrietty, written by animation giant Hayao Miyazaki, is ineligible for the Oscars this year, but just this morning a second Miyazaki-penned feature was specifically announced as part of the Oscar race.
GKIDS sent out a press release announcing they’ve acquired North American distribution rights to Goro Miyazaki‘s From Up On Poppy Hill (Kokuriko-zaka kara), the top-grossing Japanese film of 2011 (which I first mentioned back in July 2011). The announcement specifically notes the film will get an Oscar run in 2012 before hitting theaters March 2013.
This is not the only film GKIDS is bringing to the table as they also have A Letter to Momo, The Rabbi’s Cat, Le Tableau and Zarafa.
Laika, the company behind Coraline, along with Focus will bring their stop-motion feature ParaNorman into the fold while big brother, Universal Pictures, will compete with The Lorax, which took in over $308 million worldwide earlier this year.
Sony Animation is coming to the table with the already released The Pirates! Band of Misfits, which made a bigger splash overseas than it did here, but Aardman is no stranger to Oscar having won Best Animated Feature back in 2006 with Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Sony will also bring Hotel Transylvania to theaters in September.
With that we’re left with 20th Century Fox and Ice Age: Continental Drift, a franchise that has only seen the first film get an Oscar nomination for Best Animated feature in 2003, and DreamWorks with Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, a franchise in which neither of the previous two films were nominated for an Oscar, and Rise of the Guardians.
Kris Tapley does mention three films without distribution — Dorothy of Oz, Pablo and Zambezia — but, for now, it’s probably best just to focus on those we know will be hitting theaters.
Unless I am mistaken, that is 15 total contenders and based on the new rules for the Feature Animation category installed last year that means a maximum of 4 motion pictures may be nominated (it takes 16 for five films to be nominated). This means we may need to keep a watchful eye on those three Tapley mentioned, as their acquisition and release will help the category get one more nominee.
As far as any kind of early predictions are concerned, I’ll take a shot in the dark, though once I finally unleash my first batch of official predictions it may end up a little different.
My best guess would go something like this (in alphabetical order):
- Brave
- From Up On Poppy Hill
- ParaNorman
- The Rabbi’s Cat
I haven’t seen The Pirates! Band of Misfits, but it has a strong 86% rating at RottenTomatoes and I have a hard time deciding between Burton’s Frankenweenie and ParaNorman, but I have this feeling the Laika camp are going to take the stop-motion edge.
Otherwise, I’m not betting against Pixar and/or Miyazaki at this point and The Rabbi’s Cat is one people were talking about last year and it is no stranger to awards, winning France’s Cesar Award for Best Animated Film earlier this year.
