Putting “Fantastic Mr. Fox” Oscar Nominations in Context

This morning it was announced that Fantastic Mr. Fox received two Academy Award nominations, one for Best Animated Feature and another for Best Original Score. This is the second nomination Wes has received, after receiving a Best Original Screenplay nomination with Owen Wilson in 2002. But what are Fantastic Mr. Fox‘s chances come Oscar time? We’ll take a look at that and get Wes’ reaction to the nominations after the break.

Along with Fantastic Mr. Fox, four films were nominated for Best Animated Feature, including Coraline directed by Wes’ The Life Aquatic collaborator Henry Selick, Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, Ireland’s The Secret of Kells, and Pixar’s Up. As we predicted, Up received a nomination in this category and a nomination for Best Picture. Assuming that Fantastic Mr. Fox and Up are the front-runners in the category (which we can), what this could mean for Fantastic Mr. Fox is a chance to win.

Voters for the Best Animated Feature category, unlike the Best Picture category, are required to see all five nominees.  This means that voters will definitely have to see Up, and what could happen is that those voters to decide to vote for Up in the Best Picture category and go with Fantastic  Mr. Fox in the Animated category.

Finally, AwardsDaily has a round-up of a lot of nominee reactions given to the media, and here’s Wes’.

I am very honored to have received an Oscar nomination for Fantastic Mr. Fox.  Roald Dahl’s classic story has been one of my favorite books since I first learned to read, and it was an amazing experience to work with my many, many very skilled collaborators and bring it to life as a stop-motion film! I would like to congratulate Alexandre Desplat, who wrote our wonderful score, for his nomination as well. – Wes Anderson, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Animated Feature

Let’s hope Wes wins, because hes’ getting pretty good at acceptance speeches.