The slow tumble of a one-loved film giant
Nimona is a film with two stories – one on screen and one off. The animated film, which launched on Netflix on Friday, is based on a 2015 graphic novel and tells the story of the eponymous young shapeshifter (Chloë Grace Moretz) who makes it her mission to become Riz Ahmed’s disgraced knight Ballister Boldheart’s sidekick following his framing for the murder of the Queen.
The film is strong on laughs with an animation style that stays true to its graphic novel roots, and it’s so well-crafted that the futuristic yet mediaeval setting feels tangible – think Tron and King Kong meet Mulan at Arthur’s Round Table. Nimona has always had gender fluidity at its heart, and Boldheart’s secret relationship with his rival Ambrosius Goldenloin complicates the quest.
Then there’s offscreen. Disney axed the film following its acquisition of Blue Sky Studios – with staff claiming the LGBTQ+ themes and same-sex kiss were too strong for Walt’s company, which feared it’d lose its crowd.
So what? Disney is losing its crowd – especially at Pixar, its flagship animation studio. For nearly three decades the studio reigned supreme, but this year its blockbuster release Elemental opened to $29.5 million. Adjusted for inflation, that’s just 2 per cent of the first Toy Story’s opening takings. Lightyear earned $226 million.
Paint me unhappy: It’s not just Pixar that’s pixelating. Toy Story’s photo-real animation style was adopted near-wholesale but this summer’s big hitters for small audiences are Sony’s Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse ($0.5 billion + worldwide), and Super Mario Brothers (£1.3 billion). Both are the antithesis of Pixar’s polished world, with Spider-Verse’s ink splatters, sketches, scribbles and swooshes hailed as a new era of animation.
Isn’t it ironic. John Kahrs, a Pixar veteran, is credited with seeding the style. Back in 2012, he directed a short called Paperman that fused 3D computer graphics with a hand-drawn aesthetic.
With great power… comes intensive labour. The first Toy Story had 27 animators. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse employed 177. They took one week to animate each second of footage – four times as long as the industry average. As one animator tweeted: “animating in this stepped style that spider-verse and dragon prince spearheaded, is infinitely more FUN for us animators than tweaking graph curves indefinitely.”
Magic castle remakes. Walt Disney Animation Studios – the old school Disney studio – is adopting the new aesthetic. In November, it releases Wish, set in a world where castles, sunsets and forests are rendered in the wishy-washy watercolour strokes of yore.
Revenge of Nimona. As Disney struggled to fend off bad press over its wishy-washy response to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law back in 2022, Pixar’s LGBTQ+ employees released a letter claiming Disney execs demanded “nearly every moment of overtly gay affection” be cut from Pixar films.
Except Lightyear. After protests, Disney reinstated a gay kiss. And that turned out to be the best performing Pixar film since Toy Story 4.
Toy Story 5 is coming: Does anyone care?
Photographs Netflix, Disney/Pixar
