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This article originally appeared in Hollywood Today.

Ratatouille Leads Annie Nominations…Oscar Next? by Robin Rowe HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA (Hollywood Today) 12/4/07 - When it comes to animation, everyone expects Pixar to lead the way and that's what happened with the Annie Animation Award nominations. 'Ratatouille' leads the field with 13 nominations including Best Animated Feature. The rat movie continued to demonstrate that 'The Incredibles' director Brad Bird is unafraid to get a bit edgy with family animation. If the scene with grandma blasting away with a shotgun at the film's star seemed a bit post-Columbine inappropriate or anyone got a queasy feeling from the story premise of a rat serving people food, it didn't show at the box office. More...

Rat and penguin movies leading Homer and Bart Simpsons, bees and outspoken Iranian girl.

It's a stunning $612M worldwide gross with gorgeous Pixar RenderMan animation as usual.

Sony Pictures Animation's 'Surf's Up' follows with a surprising ten nominations including Best Animated Feature. 'Surf's Up' is Sony's second try at feature animation. It was hurt by audiences who remembered 'Open Season' offered little for adult viewers. But even with marketing missteps, it managed to gross $136M worldwide. 'Surf's Up' was hammered at the box office by three-quels 'Ocean's 13', 'Pirates 3', 'Shrek the Third', and 'Spider-Man 3', plus 'Knocked Up' for good measure. While some viewers found 'Surf's Up' a welcome alternative to baby-hurling 'Shrek the Third', many missed it in a summer flood of big movies.

Fox's 'The Simpson Movie', also nominated for Best Animated Feature, startled Fox executives with an unexpected $525M worldwide box office. That put its box office in the realm of 'Shrek the Third' ($791M and not nominated) and 'Ratatouille" ($612M). 'The Simpsons' is longest running primetime sitcom on the air and the longest-running primetime animated series in history. The movie satisfied twenty years of pent-up demand. "The Simpsons' first aired as part of 'The Tracey Ullman Show' in 1987. The Simpsons producers had planned to make a movie when they had more time after the show went off the air. They finally accepted that the show could run forever. The movie offered more for adults than many viewers expected. However, the TV animation style is unlikely to win awards.

A movie you won't see nominated for Best Animated Feature is Futurama's 'Bender's Big Score'. That was released last week directly to DVD, not theaters. Fox canceled the much loved series in 2003, but it's returning for four new DVD movies. The first DVD, 'Bender's Big Score' is being well-received by fans and is also nominated in the category of Best Home Entertainment Production. Considering the amazing success of 'The Simpsons Movie', Fox execs may be regretting they didn't go for the big bite and make Futurama a theatrical release, too.

DreamWorks Animation's 'Bee Movie' has rendered an unimpressive $136M in worldwide box office, which seems to put it on par with the much smaller movie 'Surf's Up'. However, 'Bee Movie' isn't done. It's still in more than 3,000 theaters drawing more than $1M a week. And, it's only just opened in foreign theaters, which may double the take. DreamWorks Animation did an extensive overhaul of its animation pipeline to accommodate the extreme accuracy required to render characters as small as insects in the same scenes with humans. Technically, the animation is beautiful and crisp. Unfortunately, joke master of the universe Jerry Seinfeld didn't prove he could sustain an entire movie. The funny film came apart in its third act. That will probably keep it from winning Best Animated Feature.

Sony Pictures Classics' 'Persepolis' is the dark horse in the Best Animated Feature race. The story is about an outspoken young Iranian girl during the Islamic Revolution. Unless you're outside the United States, you haven't seen it yet because it won't be released here until December 25th. The film is rated PG-13 for mature thematic material including violent images, sexual references, language and brief drug content. It won the Jury Prize and the Cannes Film Festival and also won at BFI, São Paulo, Vancouver, and Cinema International.

Annie Awards Best Animated Feature Nominations:

Bee Movie - DreamWorks Animation
Persepolis - Sony Pictures Classics
Ratatouille - Pixar Animation Studios
Surf's Up - Sony Pictures Animation
The Simpsons Movie - Twentieth Century Fox

Complete list of Annie nominations