Sony Animation becomes an Oscars front-runner

Not since Rango in 2012 has a movie won the best animated feature Oscar that wasn’t made by Disney or Pixar. But that streak could end this year thanks to a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.With the acclaimed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Sony Pictures Animation is in the unusual position of front-runner in the category. According to experts polled by awards prediction website Gold Derby, Into the Spider-Verse has a 23 percent chance of winning the prize, slightly ahead of Pixar Animation Studios’ Incredibles 2.If Into the Spider-Verse wins, it would be a notable exception in an era in which Disney has dominated the category. The Burbank family entertainment juggernaut and its Emeryville-based Pixar Animation Studios subsidiary have won 10 of the last 11 prizes, most recently for Pixar’s Coco and Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Zootopia. Paramount won for Rango seven years ago, and Warner Bros. prevailed in 2007 with Happy Feet.The innovative superhero film Into the Spider-Verse has been a commercial and critical boon for Culver City, Calif.-based Sony Animation, known for popular but Oscars-less franchises including Hotel Transylvania and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. The last time Sony had an animated feature nominee was for The Pirates! Band of Misfits in 2013, a collaboration with stop-motion studio Aardman. Into the Spider-Verse has done well at the box office, grossing $325 million worldwide so far, including $160 million in the US and Canada.A Sony win over Disney would also be notable because Spider-Man is one of the few Marvel characters Disney does not fully control. Disney owns Marvel Studios and is in the process of buying X-Men studio 20th Century Fox, turning Spider-Man and related characters into outliers in the superhero universe. Notably, Disney’s Marvel produced the most recent live action Spider-Man movie, starring Tom Holland, which was released by Sony in a rare collaboration of rival studios.Based on the Marvel comics, Into the Spider-Verse focuses on the character of Brooklyn-based black Latino teen Miles Morales, representing a departure from the better-known Peter Parker story lines of the live-action films. Critics have praised its inclusive message (“Anyone can wear the mask,” goes a line from the film that could serve as its mission statement) and its fresh take on the well-worn hero, with a plot that incorporates spider-heroes from elsewhere in the Marvel Comics universe. Into the Spider-Verse also features an unusual animation style, blending techniques of computer animation and 2-D cartooning to create the sense of a comic book come to life.The film got a major confidence boost this month when it won the Golden Globe for best animated feature.However, victory is far from assured for Sony, and Disney is not to be underestimated. Incredibles 2, directed by Brad Bird, is a popular sequel that earned strong reviews and $1.2 billion at the global box office. The movie, a long-awaited follow-up to a beloved Pixar blockbuster, scored a stellar 94 percent “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes. It has a 20 percent chance of winning, according to experts polled by Gold Derby.Other nominees for animated feature include the well-reviewed Disney sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet, Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animated Isle of Dogs (Fox Searchlight) and anime feature Mirai, distributed in the US by Gkids.Disney had a strong showing in the Oscar nominations, even outside the animation categories. The studio scored 17 nods, including seven for the Marvel blockbuster Black Panther, which is up for best picture and multiple technical awards. Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns was recognised in four categories, including best song and costume design.Fox had the largest haul, with 20 total nominations for the company, including five for Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. Speciality division Fox Searchlight contributed 15 nominations for its movies, including period drama The Favourite, up for best picture.Universal Pictures and its speciality division Focus Features were close behind with a combined 17 nominations. Comcast Corp.-owned Universal had nine on its own, led by five for Green Book, while Focus had eight, including multiple nominations for Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman.Netflix, the Los Gatos, Calif.-based streaming giant, also had a gratifying morning, walking away with 15 nominations, including 10 for Alfonso Cuaron’s best-picture nominee Roma. AT&T-owned Warner Bros. earned nine nods, including eight for A Star Is Born. – Los Angeles Times/TNS