BAFTAs

The British version of the Oscars, the BAFTAs, were held on Sunday and two genre favorites took home prizes.  Sony’s ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ continues to web up all the gold, winning for Best Animated Film, while ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Avengers: Infinity War’s Letitia Wright (Shuri) won the Rising Star Award.

‘Into the Spider-Verse’ beat out ‘Incredibles 2’ and ‘Isle of Dogs’.  This is just the latest win for ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ which is sweeping awards left and right.  It recently took home seven Annie Awards, the prizes reserved for animated projects– Best Animated Feature, Best Director (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman), Best Writer (Phil Lord and Rothman), Best Character Animation in an Animated Feature (David Han), Best Character Design (Shiyoon Kim), Best Production Design (Justin K. Thompson), and Best Editing (Bob Fisher, Andrew Leviton, and Vivek Sharma).  It has also taken home the  Golden Globe for Best Animated Picture, the Producers Guild of America Award, the Critics Choice Award, and was the best reviewed animated movie of 2018, crowning it with the Golden Tomato Award from Rotten Tomatoes.

It is up for the Academy Awards, which will be announced on February 24.  Once again, ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ will be competing against ‘Incredibles 2’ and ‘Isle of Dogs’ as well as ‘Mirai’ and ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’.

Mahershala Ali, who voiced Uncle Aaron/The Prowler in ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ won, but for a different project.  He won Best Supporting Actor for ‘Green Book’.

Sony is already developing a sequel to ‘Into the Spider-Verse’, a spinoff starring Spider-Gwen, and possible TV series.

Letitia Wright won the award for Rising Star, after breaking out in the Marvel pictures ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Avengers: Infinity War’.  She was also in last year’s ‘Ready Player One’ and ‘Commuter’ and the ‘Black Mirror’ episode “Black Museum,” and just or the heck of it, Drake’s ‘Nice for What’ music video.

Wright beat out Barry Keoghan (‘American Animals’), Cynthia Erivo (‘Bad Times at the El Royale’), Jessie Buckley (‘Wild Rose’), and Lakeith Stanfield (‘Sorry to Bother You’).

Wright will be back as Shuri in ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (or will she?) and will be seen in the comedy ‘Guava Island’ with Donald Glover and Rihanna.

‘Black Panther’ also took home the BAFTA for Best Visual Effects, besting ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’, ‘First Man’, and ‘Ready Player One’.

Elsewhere that same night, in the U.S., ‘Black Panther’ also won the Grammy Award for Best Score for Visual Media, for Ludwig Göransson.

Kudos to Sony and Wright!  Here’s hoping these wins can carry them over to the Oscars!

Source: Entertainment Weekly