Disney dominates Annie Award nominations

[gigirl942]

 This year was extremely fruitful for Disney, both financially and critically (even when one discounts the wild success of Marvel's The Avengers) as Pixar's Brave, Frankenweenie, and finally Wreck-it Ralph pulled in positive reviews from critics and cold, hard cash from audiences, with only Frankenweenie failing to make a profit. Wreck-it Ralph alone broke a Disney record, having brought the company its most successful opening weekend for any Animated Canon movie ever. 

Now, as 2012 wraps up, all three of Disney's newest animated movies are being honored with Annie Award nominations. All three films pulled in Best Animated Feature nominations and numerous others, earning Disney 27 separate nominations in total for film categories only, the most for any single studio. Dreamworks, which has hit a financial hard point with weak stock performance due to its projected $50 million loss for Rise of the Guardians, is in second place with 13 nominations including Best Animated Feature for Guardians.

Other competitors for Best Animated Feature include ParaNorman, Hotel Transylvania, Pirates! Band of Misfits, and GKIDS Studios' The Rabbi's Cat. 

Paperman, the short film that intricately blended traditional and CG animation and played before Wreck-it Ralph, has also been nominated for Best Animated Short. 

The Annie Awards also gives recognition for achievements in storyboarding, video games, television shows, and much more. In non-film categories, Disney has also received nominations including some for Motorcity, Tron: Uprising, and Gravity Falls.

For a complete list of Annie Award nominees for animated productions, please click here.

So tell me, what do you think of Disney's performance this year? Do you think 2013 will be better? On a side note, are you surprised that Rise of the Guardians is performing so poorly at the box office despite very good critical reviews? Did any of the nominations surprise you? Discuss, my pretties, discuss!

Comments

[jeweledeyes]

I'm pleased Disney had a great year (I only saw Brave, but I really wanted to see Wreck-It-Ralph), but I have to say I feel bad for Dreamworks. I have really liked almost every single one of their movies, especially How to Train Your Dragon and Megamind. RotG is taking tumblr by storm, too, so I'm wondering if I should see it, even though I hadn't originally planned on it. The animation looks absolutely gorgeous, but I have to admit when I saw the trailers for it, I was like, "A movie that tries to make Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy look badass? Really?" so idk idk

[jeweledeyes]

I'm also glad to hear Brave did well and is up for some awards. It seemed like all I heard at the time was people whinging about it not being as good as other Pixar films such as Finding Nemo and Up (which I strongly disagree with, but I'll spare you all my ranting). So it's good to know that it did well theatrically. It seems like the movies I like best are always the ones that don't do well XD

[allystoybarn]

Considering that RotG was literally only just released here, I'm not sure what to think. Though I am surprised based on the Tumblr reception it's received - though perhaps this a case of the 'fandom' not actually going to see the movie.

And yay Motorcity!

Also really glad to see ParaNorman in some categories, because that really was a good film. The marketing really did not do it justice.

And, hey! Pirates. Here it's called Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists cause that's the kind of title Aardman can get away with. I didn't see it, personally, but I do like seeing British film get some recognition.

[allystoybarn]

I find some of the storytelling in Brave a little wonky, to be honest, though indeed this a conversation for another time (i.e when I've bought the DVD and watched it again).

Dreamworks pictures have genuinely started coming out of Pixar's shadow, and that pleases me, because they've always had immense potential and, like, no idea what to do with it when it came to animated features.

I actually didn't see Megamind or How To Train Your Dragon until this year, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed them. Particularly Megamind.

[gigirl942]

I have good things to say about all the animated movies I've seen this year and I'm sure it would be the same for ROTG and Pirates!. Pirates I can rent or something. ROTG I will probably see in theaters if all goes well.

I do have to say that ROTG's box office failing is both surprising and disturbing to me not just because it looks like a really good movie, but also it's the first of Dreamworks' "breakout" films that hasn't broken even at the box office. Up until now, Dreamworks has enjoyed at least some financial success with the way it's trying to break away from its less-than-spectacular movies of the past. Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, and Megamind plus a few others all made them some good money.

But... I'm not sure if this $50 million dollar loss means they'll be dialing it back on movies like Rise of the Guardians. At the very least we definitely won't be seeing a sequel to this. Also, I'm pretty sure this financial loss for Dreamworks is going to be a lot harder on them than the HUGE mega million dollar losses Disney had for John Carter and Frankenweenie this year because... well, Disney has enough
Avengers/Brave/Ralph money plus all the other billions they make from their other divisions to absorb it. They have more legroom to make mistakes at this point.

The only thing I can hope is that this doesn't discourage Dreamworks from making movies like ROTG, Monsters vs. Aliens, and the like. If Rise is a miss on DVD sales, though... who knows?

[gigirl942]

I'm still trying to figure out which animated movies I like most from this year, and ParaNorman is a contender for like, #2 because I thought the entire thing was so well done. Wreck-it Ralph would probably be number one because I think it accomplishes everything it was trying to do.

I'm surprised but at the same time NOT very surprised about the whole ROTG tumblr thing, tbh. After the Lorax, it was pretty much no question that a lot of people would crowd around Jack Frost the same way they did the Once-ler, but the other characters seem to be pretty strong as well so maybe that has something to do with it. In terms of the fandom coming out to support the movie financially, I say ROTG is in a Scott Pilgrim situation, with the added bonus of being like the Lorax in that people are probably pirating the movie and mass livestreaming it for everyone to see. Either that, or maybe the interest in it doesn't necessarily mean interest in paying to see it like Scott Pilgrim.

[allystoybarn]

Fandom is such a fickle creature, if only because of the great potential for shallowness and vapidity.

Scott Pilgrim is a different kettle of fish, at least for me. I saw exactly zero trailers when it came out and it was stuck in the tiny screens in my cinemas for about two weeks and then it was gone. I didn't know about it before. Unlike RotG where the fandom sprung up BEFORE the film, from pretty much nothing - so I have to wonder exactly how many were genuinely excited for the film or just because Jack Frost happens to be attractive, and attractively voiced by Chris Pine.

I remain eternally shrugging and side-eyeing

[gigirl942]

Oh, Scott Pilgrim nearly caused a riot at Comic-Con and at least in my area, I was seeing trailers, TV ads, posters, and everything. Universal was sure this movie was going to bring in some sweet nerd money and well....

I'm pretty sure Jack Frost was the spark that set off the RoTG fandom and he's the character that it all revolves around for the most part. Let's hope people will come out to support around DVD time.