'Nimona' Overcame Many Setbacks And Became An Oscar Nominated Tale
Image Source: CultureSlate
Arriving on Netflix in June 2023, Nimona faced hardship to get to its release. But now, with an Oscar nomination to its name, producers Karen Ryan and Julie Zackary reflect on that journey. A journey that lasted almost a decade, from the film’s inception with the acquisition of the rights for an animated feature film adaptation of the web comic of the same name in 2015.
With Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2018, the project entered an uncertain future, as Ryan recalled. “We were working on it at Blue Sky and it was incredible. It was going really well. The entire studio was rallying behind this. Then Fox was acquired by Disney. Movies can get pushed and pulled by the new people coming in. My role was about protecting it and just keeping it about the themes. We were trying to make this film feel personal and not get lost in that shuffle of the transition.”
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Along with pushback on the LGBT representation in the film, COVID entered the picture to create an even more uncertain future. “Disney was haemorrhaging money,” Zackary said of that time. “We knew that the parks weren’t making money. The hotels weren’t making money, the cruise lines and movie theatres – everybody was haemorrhaging money.” Ultimately, in early 2021, Blue Sky Studios was shut down. And according to Zackary, no-one at the studio was told.
Image Source: IMDb
The crew who had worked so hard on Nimona were faced with the prospect the film would never be seen. In a 400-person Zoom call, the film was watched, with plenty of emotion shared. It was a project that meant so much to the crew, so “In that moment, we were just like, ‘We’re not going to take no for an answer,’” Ryan revealed. “’We’re not going to let this die.’ And that’s when we shifted from a major studio film into a tiny little independent company.”
Gaining the support of Annapurna, the studio helped the crew navigate the world of being independent, securing a partner in Netflix to allow Nimona to see a release. With its Oscar nomination, both Ryan and Zackary were overjoyed, and felt the nomination signaled an acceptance of LGBT themes in children’s and family entertainment.
Speaking of representation in entertainment, Ryan said, “Now there’s a whole movie about trying to make people feel represented, especially queer kids out there who don’t see themselves on screen. This movie is doing it. Its Oscar nomination means ‘You are supported. We see you. We want more of this. And we’re celebrating it.’”
Zackary added, “It was so important to make a reflection of the world that we lived in. There’s no painting it with any other stroke than, ‘This is normal. This is the world that you live in.’ We’re not going to make a big deal out of it, because that’s the way it should be.” And that is going to be a continuing theme in all their projects, with Ryan saying “We’re mostly focused on making stories that represent people who need to be seen. We want to use our efforts to create more films that make the world a better, kinder place.”
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Source: Variety
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