Pixar
Inside Out 2 became Pixar’s latest hit last week, grossing more money in its opening weekend ($294.2 million) than any other Pixar film to date.
This Pixar sequel follows Riley in her teenage years as she struggles with new emotions like fear, embarrassment, and boredom, while the old gang (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear) try to keep headquarters in Riley’s mind.
This box office success was hailed by critics. Inside Out 2 earned a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, while the website’s critical consensus reads, “Things are spiced up by the wrinkle of teen angst, Inside Out 2 clears the head and warms the heart by living up to the emotional intelligence of its predecessor.”
Could this financial and critical success translate into awards season? Well, only three animated films have been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar (Beauty and the Beast, Up, and Toy Story 3), but the screenplay categories – both original and adapted – have sometimes been a cause for celebration. So far, there have been nine such films nominated for Oscars for screenplay – two for Best Adapted Screenplay and seven for Best Original Screenplay. Let’s take a look at the former first.
“Shrek” was the first animated film to be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Ted Elliot, Terry Rossio, Joe Stillman, And Roger SH Schulman were nominated for the adaptation William Steigs book of the same name. In 2002 they competed against “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (Peter Jackson, Fran WalshAnd Philippa Boyens), “In the bedroom” (Todd Field), “Spirit World” (Daniel Clowes And Terry Zwigoff) and “A Beautiful Mind” (Akiva Goldman). The award went to “A Beautiful Mind.” However, “Shrek” also won Best Animated Film that year. This was also the first award for Best Animated Film ever, so history was made.
The other animated film nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay was Toy Story 3. Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, And Lee Unkrich competed in 2011 with the adaptation of the previous films (“Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2”). They were also nominated in a strong year, as the other nominees were “Winter’s Bone” (Debra Granik And Anne Rosellini), “True Grit” (Joel And Ethan Coen), “127 hours” (Daniel Boyle And Simon Beauvoir) and “The Social Network” (Aaron Sorkin), which won. Toy Story 3 won for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for “We Belong Together.” It was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Sound Editing.
Now let’s move on to the best original screenplay. In 1996, “Toy Story” was the first animated film to be nominated for the screenplay. The writers were Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow, John Lasseter, Pete Docter, And Joe Ranft. They were nominated together with “Nixon” (Oliver Stone, Christopher Wilkinson, And Stephen J. Rivele), “Mighty Aphrodite” (Woody All), “Brave heart” (Randall Wallace) and the winner “The Usual Suspects” (Christopher McQuarrie). “Toy Story” was also nominated for Best Original Score and Best Song (for “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”) and received a Special Achievement Award for Lasseter. However, the category “Best Animated Feature” did not yet exist at that time.
Stanton, Bob PetersonAnd David Reynolds were nominated for Best Original Screenplay in 2004 for “Finding Nemo”, alongside “In America” (Jim Sheridan, Naomi SheridanAnd Kirsten Sheridan), “Dirty Pretty Things” (Steven Knight), “The Invasions of the Barbarians” (Denys Arcand) and the winner Sofia Coppola for “Lost in Translation.” “Finding Nemo” was also nominated for Best Original Score and Best Sound Editing and won the award for Best Animated Feature.
“The Incredibles” was nominated for Best Original Screenplay the following year. Brad Bird competed against “Vera Drake” (Mike Leigh), “Hotel Rwanda” (Terry George And Keir Pearson), “The Aviator” (John Logan) and “Don’t forget me!” (Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry, And Pierre Bismuth). However, The Incredibles also fared well in other categories: It received a nomination for Best Sound and won both Best Sound Editing and Best Animated Feature.
“Ratatouille” won the award for best original screenplay in 2008 for Bird, Jan PinkavaAnd Jim Capobianco. They were together with “The Savages” (Tamara Jenkins), “Michael Clayton” (Tony Gilroy), “Lars and the Women” (Nancy Oliver) and the winner “Juno” (Diablo Cody). “Ratatouille” was also nominated in the categories “Sound” and “Best Original Score.” It won the award for Best Animated Film.
“WALL-E” was released the following year in 2009 for the screenplay by Stanton, Docter and Jim Reardonagainst “Milk” (Dustin lance Black), “Frozen River” (Courtney hunt), “Happy-Go-Lucky” (Mike Leigh) and “In Bruges” (Martin McDonagh). “Milk” won, while “WALL-E” won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and was also nominated in both categories for sound, as well as for Best Original Score and Best Original Song (for “Down to Earth”). “WALL-E” also made history… tying the record set by “Beauty and the Beast” for most Oscar nominations for an animated film – six.
“Up” made it into the competition for Best Original Screenplay for Animated Feature Film and Pixar three times in a row, when Peterson, Docter and Tom McCarthy were nominated in 2010. They found themselves in a difficult category, with the Coen brothers (“A Serious Man”), Quentin Tarantino (“Inglourious Basterds”), To mark Boal (“The Hurt Locker”) and Alexander Camon And Oren Furniture packers (“The Messenger”) were all in the running. Boal won. “Up” was the third (and most recent) animated film to be nominated for Best Picture, while it won for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score, and was also nominated for Best Sound Editing.
The last animated film to be nominated for a screenplay award was “Inside Out,” which starred Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh CooleyAnd Ronnie del Carmen an application for the best original screenplay in 2016. “Spotlight” (McCarthy and Josh Singer) won this year, while “Bridge of Spies” (Matt Charman and the Coen brothers), “Ex Machina” (Alex garland) and “Straight Outta Compton” (Jonathan Herman, Andrea Berloff, S. Leigh Savidge, And Alan Wenkus) were also nominated. “Inside Out” won the award for best animated film.
So those are the nine animated films nominated for the screenplay awards. Here are a few takeaways… First, none of these films managed to turn their screenplay nomination into a win, so we’re still waiting for our first animated film winner in either screenplay category, even though the films listed are some of the most creative and original stories of this century.
Second, all but one of these films went on to win at least one other Oscar, and all won at least Best Animated Feature. The exception was Toy Story, but the Best Animated Feature category didn’t exist then. This suggests that an animated film that is entered into the Screenplay category has a good chance of winning Best Animated Feature — keep an eye on that later this year.
And third, eight of these nine films were Pixar products. The only exception was “Shrek,” a Dreamworks film. Pixar has the monopoly here, which bodes well for “Inside Out 2.”
director Kelsey Mann is responsible for the author work on this sequel, alongside Dave Holstein and LeFauve, who was nominated for co-writing the first film, Inside Out. Holstein and Mann are awaiting their first nominations. If the trio were nominated for the screenplay for Inside Out 2, it would be for Best Adapted Screenplay, as Academy rules state that each sequel adapts the works of previous films. However, given the runaway success of Inside Out 2, we could be looking forward to the 10th animated film nominated for screenplay this year.
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