Jason

I should probably make a decision soon since I have no idea how quickly tickets sell out at TIFF. But not completely sure about my availability the weekend of the 17th-18th. Showing on the 11th is definite no-go and 12th and 15th are press screenings.

I hope you're right.

Was it clear by the time of the ceremony that Brave was going to beat Wreck-It Ralph and that Shrek was going to beat Monster's Inc? Those ones don't seem that obvious to me right now and I wasn't paying attention at the time.

Mhmm, I figured since at a very minimum HTTYD2 isn't on that list. Weird coincidence that the number you happen to have felt worthy of a list (thus far) happens to be the total number I've watched (thus far).

You've watched more than me, I'm at 49 total. (Not all of which I'm sure all include on a final list.) Going to try to watch as many as I can of the reputably good ones I've missed by the end of September though.

The description of the ratings is pretty similar between both countries, but G ratings seem to be far more common here, at least in Ontario. Finding Dory and Secret Life of Pets are both G, as was Zootopia if I recall correctly. Kubo is PG.

http://www.tiff.net/films/sing/ I presume this means that any differences compared to the final version will be pretty minor/insignificant?

I've been having the same problem. It screened in Toronto (independent theatre) on July 24 this summer, but I couldn't make it. I put a hold on it at the Toronto Public Library, but there are 4 copies and 60+ holds so I'm not expecting to get it any time soon. TIFF (the organization, not the actual festival) will be showing "a near-exhaustive retrospective of films produced by Studio Ghibli" from December 24 to January 10 this winter. Hoping that that will include Fireflies and that I'll be able to make it.

Moana Beauty and the Beast Queen of Katwe Hacksaw Ridge Rogue One Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Sing The Red Turtle Dunkirk Doctor Strange

I don't think Illumination is trying to hurt Disney, they're just trying to maximize their own profits. There are only a few good release windows in the year, so they can't avoid Disney releases entirely unless they were to release their films at a time when families are a lot less likely to go to theatres.

The markets that opened up to the weekend of August 12-14 ("current markets") should have a total of close to $380M (individual estimates add up to $381M). Markets that opened up this past weekend should be pretty close to $35M (individual estimates add up to $36M). As before, the following table groups the markets by opening date, and shows your original estimates from earlier, a raw unrounded calculation for those markets combined, my estimates (from August 4 where applicable), and the adjusted ER totals of Despicable Me 2, Minions, Inside Out, and Zootopia. It is now apparent that Pets will gross well above DM2 and IO in current markets, but upon closer examination, Pets did particularly well in China, South Korea, and Japan. The total for Pets outside of these markets is tracking just slightly below that of DM2 and IO. The remaining markets for Pets are Australia/NZ, Brazil, Italy, and a handful of smaller Asian markets. Pets has been pretty comparable overall in Europe and Latin America, and I think it will tend a little more closely to DM2 in the smaller Asian markets. My estimate for remaining markets: $80M. Total OS estimate for Pets is then 380+35+80 = $495M. Definitely has a chance of passing $500M, although could also fall just short. Domestic estimate is $370M, WW = $865M. Raw data hidden below for those interested:

I think he's making a nerdy joke about Kubo having only one eye, not something about his personality or skills etc.

Moana Beauty and the Beast Queen of Katwe Hacksaw Ridge Rogue One Sing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them The Red Turtle Dunkirk Doctor Strange

I'm not sure that Pixar has an inherent advantage either, actually. Brave is the only example of a Pixar film winning where it didn't also have the best critical reception amongst wide releases. I think your other points regarding Zootopia would apply to Dory as well. Unless Moana gets markedly weaker critical reception than Zootopia or Dory, that would be my guess for most likely to win. I still think Zootopia is more likely than Dory, but more because of its originality and social message than the difference in overall critical reception (which is relatively small, and probably a proxy for Academy voting patterns rather than a direct influence).

I'll also take this bet.

The problem with this is that many of those nominees also have the best critical reception, especially among the wide releases. From those winners it's impossible to determine whether box office performance or critical reception is a key predictor of winning. We had this discussion shortly after Dory released, @yjs did a breakdown (full original post worth reading, I quoted in part and there's also more context) of years where there was close competition between films (ie. at least two strong contenders, taking into account both RT and box office). Spirited Away, The Incredibles, Happy Feet, and Rango all beat nominees with higher box office gross. On the other hand, only Shrek, Brave, and Big Hero 6 beat wide-release nominees with that had higher RT score/average rating but lower box office gross. There does not appear to be any general tendency for films with higher box office gross to win when their competitors are better-received releases from major studios.

There is no statistically significant difference between the average rating of Zootopia and Kubo. What this means is that the difference in average rating between Zootopia and Kubo is too small to be able to draw any conclusions on which film would have a higher rating from a different sample of the same population. If you would consider the Academy and critics to be different populations, then there's even less reason to believe that they would necessarily be in agreement with critics.

I can't find out for certain, but I think it's a result of how the nominees are chosen, which is probably by preferential voting. Candidates in preferential voting are typically eliminated by order of weakest first choice support. The Lego Movie would not have any contingent of animation branch members likely to place it as their first choice, unlike any of the other nominees. With regards to Boxtrolls, it's clear there's a portion of the animation branch that are fans of Laika/stop-motion. My original post focused on a different example (Monster's University), but same idea.

Hmmm. Honestly, I didn't think about that, it's listed by original WW because that's the order I add new films to the table for the most part, and it's pretty trivial for me to sort using a different column in the Excel file when I want to. I just added a table sorting by new WW gross instead of original, in a spoiler tag (for now, anyway) so that the post isn't too large.

Added 10 films to the master table: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Spider-Man 3 Spectre Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Also updated the exchange rate adjustment to be current as of August 19. Archived table as of August 5 (for reference purposes):

It's on track for ~$75M. I wouldn't call that "hugely" disappointing.

The other example that comes to mind, Wallace and Gromit (2005), was up against two other nominees (Corpse Bride, Howl's Moving Castle) that were also from smaller studios and not computer animated. The highest RT score of the computer animated films of that year was 64%, so it's unsurprising that none of them were nominated. Also, I doubt that there's a Disney/Pixar voting bloc amongst the Academy at large that will split votes, it's more likely that the strength of the Disney releases of this year is likely to pull votes from the other nominees as well. However deserving it may be, I think it's very unlikely for Kubo to win.

Mhmm, there were free film screenings at an auditorium that was actually very close to my residence. But it was never anything recent unless it was a niche film.

How's that work? That's one perk of being a student I don't recall having!

No one here is arguing that Nate Parker's actions mean that his films must be low quality films. They're arguing that they don't want to support the film because of his actions, which is different. It is not poisoning the well.