It’s official: there will be no more than three nominees in the Oscar Animated Feature category.
The Academy released the list of qualifying films on Monday, and 15 movies were submitted and deemed eligible. A field of between eight and 15 submissions means three films can be nominated, provided they receive high enough scores.
Last year, for only the second time in the nine-year history of the category, five films were nominated out of a field of 20.
“Toy Story 3” and “How to Train Your Dragon” are considered prohibitive frontrunners for the first two slots, with the third spot up for grabs from a group that includes the major-studio productions “Megamind,” “Tangled,” “Despicable Me” and “Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole,” and dark-horse indies like “Idiots and Angels,” “Summer Wars” and “My Dog Tulip.”
A spokesperson for Warner Bros. told theWrap that the company had planned to submit the animation/live-action hybrid “Yogi Bear” to the Academy, but it is not on the AMPAS list and may have been judged ineligible by a committee from the Short Films and Feature Animation branch.
Voters who agree to see at least 80 percent of the qualifying films, which in this case means 12 movies, will select the final nominees.
The qualifying films:
“Alpha and Omega”
“Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore”
“Despicable Me”
“The Dreams of Jinsha”
“How to Train Your Dragon”
“Idiots and Angels”
“The Illusionist”
“Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole”
“Megamind”
“My Dog Tulip”
“Shrek Forever After”
“Summer Wars”
“Tangled”
“Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue”
“Toy Story 3”
