Oscar Qualified Features

The Academy has released its list of animated features that qualify for Oscar consideration. 14 titles. Had Universal deemed to enter The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything and if Warner Bros. submitted Star Wars: The Clone Wars, or had Fox entered Space Chimps, we might have had the opportunity for five nominees. As it is Academy members will pick three from this selection:

Bolt – Disney
Delgo — Fathom Studios
Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! — 20th Century Fox/Blue Sky
Dragon Hunters — Futurikon/Peace Arch
Fly Me to the Moon — Summit Ent./nWave
Igor — MGM/ Weinstein Co./Exodus
Kung Fu Panda — DreamWorks Animation
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa — DreamWorks Animation
$9.99 — Regent Releasing
The Sky Crawlers — Production IG./Nippon/Sony Pictures Classics
Sword of the Stranger (Stranger Mukoh Hadan) – Shochiku/Bones/Bandai
The Tale of Despereaux – Universal
WALL-E — Disney/Pixar
Waltz with Bashir — Sony Pictures Classics

If anyone knows where and when The Sky Crawlers and Dragon Hunters are booked for their one-week Oscar qualifying release in Los Angeles, please let me know. I’m curious to see these.

Any thoughts on which three the Academy may nominate?