Will an animated movie ever win Best Picture? ‘Ultraman: Rising’ directors explain ‘stigma’ and why they’re still hopeful
Will an animated movie ever win Best Picture at the Oscars? It’s a question many people have asked ever since Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” became the first nominated in the prestigious category 32 years ago. Since then, just two more have been nominated: “Up” in 2010 and “Toy Story 3” in 2011.
In 2020, “Parasite” made history as the first international film to win Best Picture. The victory for director Bong Joon-ho‘s South Korean thriller was a sign that the Academy’s concerted effort to become more diverse had paid off, resulting in new possibilities for what kind of film could claim Hollywood’s top prize.
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In a recent interview with Gold Derby, “Ultraman: Rising” directors Shannon Tindle and John Aoshima discussed why there hasn’t been an animated Best Picture winner yet, and if they think they’ll ever see one in their lifetime. “I’ve been having a lot of conversations with Guillermo del Toro, Phil Lord, and Chris Miller about how people consider it,” Tindle explains. “Directors in animation are not even in the DGA. We’re not covered by our own guild, the Animation Guild.”
“There seems to be a stigma around the films,” Tindle continues. “If it’s a family film it’s not going to get nominated. If it’s animated, which is purely a technique, it may not get nominated. If people are educated more on the process of what animated filmmaking is and how much heart and soul that we put into it, I think we can have something that breaks through in the same way that ‘Parasite’ did. It was just a great film, and people loved it.” Aoshima adds, “I hope that day comes.” Watch the full video interview above.
Tindle and Aoshima met while attending California Institute of the Arts. After becoming roommates, they discovered they had a common love for Ultraman, a Japanese superhero that was created for the 1966 television series “Ultra Q.” After that, the character was the focus of multiple TV shows, becoming an international phenomenon, but not as widely known to Americans as characters from Marvel or the DC Universe.
“When you’re at a place like CalArts you’re nerding out,” Tindle jokes. “That would be one of the things we would nerd out about.” Aoshima reveals, “When [Tindle] had this concept and showed me his sketch, I was like, ‘Ultraman? You want to do Ultraman?’ From that point, I was like, ‘This sounds exciting.’ But we were young, the early days of are career. [Tindle] stuck with it and also came up with ‘Kubo.’ That went into production first.”
In “Ultraman: Rising,” Ken Sato is a superstar baseball player who returns to Japan to become the latest hero to carry the mantle of Ultraman. However, he is compelled to raise a newborn kaiju monster, the offspring of his greatest enemy, as his own child. The familial twist was important to Tindle. “I knew there were a lot of people who didn’t know who Ultraman was,” he says. “I knew what they could probably connect with was the challenges that parents and children face. As we grow up, sometimes we can grow apart. I knew that was a story that would probably be universal, and those are the kinds of stories I like to tell.”
For Aoshima, the film is personal. “Anything I work on, it all comes from a personal experience,” he explains. “I find opportunities to bring in those personal elements, like my grandparents’ house. Also, the story taking place in Japan, and having a character who is Japanese-American. I dive into my personal experience because I understand what it’s like to have that identity crisis. You don’t know where your home is, because you’re seen different in the US, but then you’re also not accepted in your own home country because I have an American-Japanese accent. You have to navigate through that. I find ways to add that level of specificity to hopefully make a character that’s uniquely interesting.”
“Ultraman: Rising” is currently available to stream on Netflix.
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