"Despicable Me 2," "Monsters University" and "The Croods" are some of the biggest box office hits of the year, but will those films also wind up as Oscar nominees in the Best Animated Feature category? Probably, but the competition could be more fierce than ever, as TheWrap's Steve Pond reports that The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has changed the way the nominating process for the animated feature categories will work going forward.
"Voters on the nominating committee will now be able to view the eligible films on screeners, rather than having to attend special screenings at the Academy," wrote Pond. In the past, members of the Short Films and Feature Animation branch needed to see 80 percent of the eligible films to have their votes count; the new rule will drop that threshold to 66 percent.
All of this shuffling might seem insignificant, but it could further deepen the field of Best Animated Feature contenders, and push the category away from being dominated by the widely seen successes in the genre. For a full breakdown of what this all means, head over to TheWrap.
The 2014 Oscar nominations will be announced on Jan. 16, 2014.
[via TheWrap]
