‘The Lion King’ Could Compete for the Best Animated Feature

The shorthand description for Disney’s new film “The Lion King” is that it’s one more live-action remake of one of many studio’s animated classics.

But even director Jon Favreau admits that his new model of “The Lion King” solely seems like a live-action film. In reality, it’s each bit as animated because the 1994 authentic, besides that it’s animated by visual-effects artists working within the pc quite than Disney artists with hand-drawn cells.

And that signifies that if Disney wished to enter it within the Academy Awards race for Best Animated Feature, it will undoubtedly qualify and can be going up in opposition to the Disney-owned Pixar Animation Studios’ “Toy Story 4,” which got here out in June, and to Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Frozen 2,” which shall be out in November.

Also Read: ‘The Lion King’ Remake Roars to $23 Million at Thursday Box Office

(Since “The Lion King” was made below the auspices of Walt Disney Studios quite than Disney Animation, it will additionally imply that three separate Disney firms can be competing for the award.)

Disney didn’t reply to TheWrap’s questions on whether or not it was planning to enter “The Lion King” within the Oscar animation race, although some people near the studio anticipate it not to take action.

Favreau’s earlier remake of a Disney animated basic, 2016’s “The Jungle Book,” might have certified as an animated movie as properly. Its predominant character, Mowgli, was a live-action efficiency by younger actor Neel Sethi, however all the different main characters had been computer-animated jungle animals voiced by Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba and others.

At the time, based on an individual with data of the discussions, Disney gave Favreau the choice of submitting the movie for animation awards, and he selected not to take action. The movie gained the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, the one class wherein it was nominated.

It was additionally nominated by the Annie Awards, the chief prize dedicated to animation, within the Character Animation in a Live-Action Production class, however not in any classes dedicated to animated movies.

Also Read: ‘The Lion King’ Film Review: Impressive Technical Mastery Drains the Life From the Original

When Favreau hosted a bunch of journalists in the course of the manufacturing of “The Lion King,” he was requested if it was an animated movie. He admitted that it was onerous to categorise, saying that it was not live-action as a result of it didn’t use cameras to seize actual animals and since “everything is coming through the hands of artists.” But, he added, “To say it’s animated, I think, is misleading.”

Still, “The Lion King” might simply qualify for animation awards if the studio and the filmmakers submitted it that means. This is the definition of animated movie within the Academy’s official guidelines for the 2019 Oscars:

“An animated film is defined as a motion picture in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique, and usually falls into one of the two general fields of animation: narrative or abstract. Some of the techniques of animating films include but are not limited to hand-drawn animation, computer animation, stop-motion, clay animation, pixilation, cutout animation, pinscreen, camera multiple pass imagery, kaleidoscopic effects created frame-by-frame, and drawing on the film frame itself. Motion capture and real-time puppetry are not by themselves animation techniques … In an animated film, animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time. In addition, a narrative animated film must have a significant number of the major characters animated. If the picture is created in a cinematic style that could be mistaken for live action, the filmmaker(s) must also submit information supporting how and why the picture is substantially a work of animation rather than live action.”

Step by step, “The Lion King” suits all of these necessities….