Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio took home the best animated feature prize in the first win of the night at the 95th Academy Awards Sunday on ABC.
(Bloomberg) — Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio took home the best animated feature prize in the first win of the night at the 95th Academy Awards Sunday on ABC.
The ceremony marks a moment in which Hollywood’s elite seek a balance between tradition and keeping up with the times.
The favorite for best picture and most-nominated movie is an indie film, A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once. The absurdist genre-bending drama also performed well in theaters, a departure from recent years when little-seen pictures racked up trophies.
“All the top 10 highest-grossing films this year were sequels and franchises,” Jimmy Kimmel, hosting for the third time, said in the start of the show. “They say Hollywood is running out of new ideas. Even Steven Spielberg had to make a movie about Steven Spielberg.”
That film and other smaller-budget artsy movies, including Searchlight Pictures’ drama about a dissolving friendship, The Banshees of Inisherin, will go toe to toe with major blockbusters. The Paramount Pictures fighter-jet film Top Gun: Maverick and Walt Disney Co.’s Avatar: The Way of Water both earned well over $1 billion in box-office sales and were nominated for best picture.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is also seeking to move past a controversy from last year. The show was overshadowed by actor Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on stage.
The industry group has been focused on diversity, though its efforts are a work in progress. Asian actors, such as Michelle Yeoh from Everything Everywhere, made a stronger-than-usual showing among nominees but most people up for acting awards are White. All the nominees for best director are men.
Kimmel poked fun at last year’s controversy. He quipped that this year the academy opted to ditch the red carpet in favor of a champagne carpet as a show of confidence that “no blood would be shed.” In his opening monologue that anyone who commits an act of violence would receive a best actor award.
Read More: ‘Everything Everywhere’ Studio A24 Is Indie Films’ New King
The ceremony, also broadcast on ABC, attracted 16.6 million viewers last year when Apple Inc.’s Coda won the award for best picture—up 58% from a year earlier.
Netflix, A24 Take Home Early Wins at Ceremony
Netflix’s Pinocchio won the award for best animated feature. The film has performed better than any rivals on the awards circuit, also winning at the Golden Globes earlier this year.
Ke Huy Quan won the best support actor trophy for his role in Everything Everywhere. He played Waymond Wang, the husband of Evelyn Wang, a laundromat owner whose struggle to complete her taxes spirals into a genre-bending multiverse of conflicts.
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