I’m still putting together my first round of Oscar predictions to be unveiled shortly after the conclusion of the Toronto International Film Festival, and one category I have already loaded with a group of contenders is the Best Feature Animation category. Today GKids made filling out the list even easier by sending over a press release announcing the four films they will be giving Oscar qualifying runs for consideration and by my count we are now up to 17 total contenders with distribution and release plans.
In alphabetical order, here’s the list so far:
- Arjun: The Warrior Prince (Walt Disney Pictures)
- Brave (Walt Disney Pictures / Pixar)
- Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (Universal Pictures)
- Frankenweenie (Walt Disney Pictures)
- From Up On Poppy Hill (GKids)
- Hotel Transylvania (Columbia Pictures)
- Ice Age: Continental Drift (20th Century Fox)
- A Liar’s Autobiography – The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman (Brainstorm Media)
- Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (DreamWorks Pictures)
- ParaNorman (Focus Features)
- The Pirates! Band of Misfits (Columbia Pictures)
- The Rabbi’s Cat (GKids)
- Rise of the Guardians (DreamWorks Pictures)
- Secret of the Wings (Walt Disney Pictures)
- Le Tableau (GKids)
- Wreck-It Ralph (Walt Disney Pictures)
- Zarafa (GKids)
With that we’re looking at five nominations in the category this year and hopefully a stronger crop than what we saw last year. Personally, I’ve yet to be impressed by an animated film this year though I did miss The Pirates! Band of Misfits and Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, the latter of which was an intentional skip.
Looking forward on the schedule there is still yet a lot to see including India’s Arjun: The Warrior Prince presented by Disney, Tim Burton‘s stop-motion feature Frankenweenie, Goro Miyazaki‘s From Up On Poppy Hill, the Adam Sandler-voiced Hotel Transylvania, A Liar’s Autobiography – The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman which has already started screening for critics in New York and will play Toronto, The Rabbi’s Cat, Rise of the Guardians, the latest animated Tinkerbell movie Secret of the Wings, Le Tableau, Disney’s video game inspired CG feature Wreck-It Ralph and Zarafa. There’s certainly no shortage of potential as you can clearly see.
Since I don’t yet have an idea as to which films to place where I don’t think I can come up with a front-runner. Personally I’m excited to see From Up On Poppy Hill and Wreck-It Ralph and I’m curious to check out Arjun: The Warrior Prince, which I’ve included the trailer for directly below. In fact, if you click on any of the titles above or the “Related Links” below, I have trailers for all of them except for A Liar’s Autobiography on their respective asset pages here on the site.
So click on any of the titles above and see what they have in store.
Thanks to HitFix and The Wrap for information that contributed to this report.
