Bafta added a new category last year, following the cancellation of its annual Children’s Awards: best children’s and family film. Essentially this was an award that had slid over from the scrapped ceremony, and most would agree it got off to a rocky start in its new home. In total, 19 films were submitted, including 12 animations that also competed for the animated feature award.
The jury shunned live-action comedy Paddington In Peru, nominating four animations and handing the award to Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (which also won for feature animation). Consensus verdict: minimally additive to the Bafta Film Awards.
The whole process — longlist, nominations and winner — remains in the hands of a jury, which this year will choose between 14 submitted films, comprising eight animations and six live-action titles.
The animations are US studio titles The Bad Guys 2, Dog Man, Elio and Zootopia 2 (aka Zootropolis 2) plus Netflix’s In Your Dreams and indies Arco, The Glassworker and Little Amélie Or The Character Of Rain.
Among the six live-action titles, two are remakes of animated hits: Disney’s Lilo & Stitch and DreamWorks’ How To Train Your Dragon. Dean Fleischer Camp’s Lilo & Stitch was a smash hit at the box office, grossing more than $1bn worldwide. Dean DeBlois’ How To Train Your Dragon likewise connected with audiences in a big way, grossing $636m worldwide for Universal.
Disney also offers Nisha Ganatra’s Freakier Friday, its belated sequel to the 2003 hit starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. Both actresses returned for the sequel, this time switching bodies with teenage girls (Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons) and resulting in a worldwide box office of $153m.
The other three live-action films in the mix are lower profile. Distributed by True Brit, Gurinder Chadha’s Christmas Karma is her British Asian musical take on Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. From Sky Cinema, Grow is John McPhail’s family comedy about pumpkin growing. And Boong is Lakshmipriya Devi’s Toronto-launched drama about a schoolboy navigating racial tensions in Manipur as he seeks to reunite his divided family.
Not submitted for the children’s and family film Bafta: Warner Bros’ PG-rated monster hit A Minecraft Movie ($958m worldwide). Also not submitted: live-action remake Disney’s Snow White, Paramount’s Smurfs, Universal’s Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie and Paramount/Nickelodeon’s The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants. PG-rated documentary Ocean With David Attenborough might likewise have thrived here.
When the dust has settled on this year’s Bafta Film Awards, the British academy needs once again to go out and woo UK distributors for more support in this seemingly flailing category.
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