‘Zootopia’ Director Takes A Bite Out Of Donald Trump With Best Animated Feature Win
“We are so grateful to the audiences all over the world that embraced this film with this story of tolerance being more powerful than fear of the other,”said Zootopia co-director Rich Moore onstage tonight to big applause as the Disney pic snagged the Best Animated Feature at tonight’s Academy Awards. The remark by the filmmaker, who was joined by fellow director Byron Howard and producer Clark Spencer was a clear but unnamed dig at the policies of Donald Trump on a night that has seen the President take a number of expected blows from Hollywood and host Jimmy Kimmel so far.
Politics aside, the Howard and Moore directed film was certainly seen as the favored contender going into tonight’s Oscars with big wins at the Annie Awards earlier this month. The multiple awards for the fourth highest grossing film of 2016 from its animated industry peers followed wins at the Golden Globes and the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Animated Feature last month.
Having said that, Zootopia wasn’t the only Disney film nominated in the category this year with the House of Mouse’s Moana competing for the ‘toon prize too. Also nominated this year were My Life as a Zucchini, The Red Turtle and Kubo and the Two Strings, with the latter also up for Best Visual Effects. Disney’s big hit sequel Finding Dory, which the President screened at the White House recently, was not in the running.
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Released on March 4 last year after premiering at the Brussels Animation Film Festival the month before, the Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba and Jenny Slate voiced film about team-up between a law enforcement rabbit and a con man fox has snared more than $1 billion at the global box office. The win for Zootopia marks the fifth Oscars in a row that a Disney film or Disney-owned entity has won the Best Animated Feature. In 2012, Brave took the now 15-year old award, followed by Frozen in 2013, a surprise win for Big Hero 6 in 2014 and Inside Out last year.
Nominated for 11 Annie Awards, Zootopia took home half a dozen at the February 4 show at UCLA’s Royce Hall.
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