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The animation wars have provided some of Hollywood's most colorful off-screen entertainment the last few years, with periodic skirmishes between perennial powerhouse Walt Disney and relative newcomer Dreamworks, which counts among its principals former Disney studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg.
The battling began in earnest in 1998. Disney executives started grumbling that when Katzenberg left in 1994, he took with him the idea for A Bug's Life, the insect film Pixar produced for Disney, so Dreamworks could hustle its own animated offering to theaters first.
The most recent flare-up, in early November, was over the minute-long commercial for George Lucas' THX sound system that plays in movie theaters before the trailers start to roll. Dreamworks, on the verge of releasing its megahit Shrek on DVD and video, had struck a deal with Lucas to have its green ogre featured on the THX spot. But Monsters, Inc., produced by Pixar for Disney, was coming out on the same weekend. Pixar, a THX client, complained, and Shrek was out of the commercial (see BW Online, 11/06/01, "In a Twist over Trailers").
AWARD ESCALATION. Hold on, there's more -- and this time a lot more players will turn out for the battle. On Dec. 11, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is expected to approve adding a Best Picture Oscar for Animated Film to the roster of awards it will give out next Mar. 24. (Nominations will be announced on Feb. 12.) The Academy awarded special statutes for Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1938 and Fantasia in 1941, and animated films have won awards in other categories, such as Best Original Song. But in the Academy's 73 years of giving awards, it has never bestowed a Best Picture statue on an animated film, and only Beauty and the Beast, in 1992, has ever been nominated.
If a Best Picture award for animation is approved, brace yourself for a marketing blitz similar to the knock-down, drag-out affair staged by Dreamworks and Disney's Miramax two years ago, when Miramax's Shakespeare in Love beat Dreamworks' Saving Private Ryan. Insiders attributed the upset largely to a hail of ads in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter and a cascade of gift boxes containing videocassettes.
It costs an estimated $5 million to wage the kind of campaign we're likely to see. A lot of money, yes, but a Best Picture nomination can be worth big bucks when selling video, cable-TV, and foreign rights for any type of movie. A Best Picture Oscar would be the movie equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for adults eager to buy something that's "good for" their kids.
THE PITCH. Dreamworks, which staged a massive marketing campaign to win last year's Best Picture Oscar for Gladiator, intends to go all out for Shrek. Disney will no doubt counter with its own blitz for Atlantis: The Lost Empire. And it will team with Pixar for Monsters, Inc., which was produced by Pixar -- although the companies jointly paid for production and marketing. Dreamworks and Disney declined to comment for this story.
For studios that don't have big reputations for turning out animated pictures, a Best Picture nod is a chance to change that. That's why Paramount is already getting a campaign ready for Jimmy Neutron, which hits theaters on Dec. 21. Warner Bros. will be pitching Osmosis Jones, the tale of a white blood cell in a human blood stream, which flopped this summer at the box office. Sony also has high hopes of snaring a nomination for its own summer animation dud, Final Fantasy, a computer-generated film that cost north of $120 million and generated box-office sales of $32 million.
Beyond the out-and-out monetary firepower to get the nomination, a fair amount of drama will be attached to the animation Oscar. After all-but-inventing animation, might Disney get shut out with Atlantis, a disappointing product of its traditional animation operation? Hard to imagine, but the rules for this particular category require there be only three nominees, and at least 13 films qualify, according to the Academy. Atlantis isn't one of Disney's best.
And what happens if Monsters, Inc., a sure-fire nominee, wins the Award? Disney and Pixar have been feuding for months over which of them will make the third Toy Story movie. Would an Oscar for Steve Jobs's crew at Pixar embolden the studio to seek independence from its production deal with Disney?
ANEMIC CROP. The skirmish for the animation nomination may well be the hardest-fought Oscar battle of the year. Most Hollywood executives consider this a very weak year for Oscar nominees. Not many clear-cut candidates for Best Picture have been released so far this year, many say. Of the upcoming crop, the highest hopes are for A Beautiful Mind, which stars Russell Crowe as a brilliant mathematician plagued with paranoid schizophrenia, and for the bio pic Ali, starring Will Smith.
Indeed, the pickings are so slim for traditional films that Dreamworks will mount simultaneous campaigns to get Shrek nominated for both the new animation award and the traditional Best Picture prize.
The irony is that all this fighting may be for this year only. The Academy has to decide each year whether it will give a Best Picture award for animation. The rules for this category require that there be a minimum of eight animated films to choose from. To qualify, a movie has to be a minimum of 70 minutes long and at least 75% animated.
In 2002, the Academy may well decide against giving the award, since it takes up to five years to make an animated film and some major producers -- think Pixar, for one -- don't have a release planned for next year. That shortage makes this year's nominations and awards all the more valuable, just as it makes the battle all the more fierce -- and entertaining.
Grover is Los Angeles bureau chief for BusinessWeek. Follow his weekly Power Lunch column, only on BW Online Edited by Patricia O'Connell
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Copyright 2001 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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