The Oscars this past weekend was just like any other prestigious award show: filled with glamour, stars, victories and of course heart-break. Many were surprised with some category winners and others seemed to be a given. When it came to the category of best animated feature, it seemed that Disney’s animated feature “Frozen” was taking home the award. But to the production crew at Walt Disney Animation, winning this award was the one thing keeping the Walt Disney Animation studios still open.
The New York Times talked to John Lasseter, chief creative office of both Pixar and Disney animation, about how much was at stake. “There was talk of closing this place,” Lasseter said about what could have happened if they had not won. Proudly, Lasseter and his crew were not going to let that happen, and they made that very clear in there beloved animated production.
Ever since the category for best animated feature was created in 2001, Pixar has reigned winning seven times while their rivals, such as DreamWorks, won the years that Pixar didn’t. Though Pixar is a sibling to Disney Animation, the tension began to increase when the demand for Disney’s once popular hand-drawn cartoons began to decrease. Walt Disnyey Animation may be responsible for many timeless classics such as “Cinderella” and “The Lion King”; still, even younger audiences nowadays are becoming more and more attracted to the computer animation movies as opposed to just the animated classic cartoons.
Now that they pulled off a win at the Oscars this year, things are a lot less tense in the Disney animations studios; on top of winning the award, that very weekend “Frozen” hit $1 billion in the global box office.