Disney starts best-picture campaign for Wall-E

Never mind that an animated film has never won a best picture Oscar. Never mind that only one, Beauty and the Beast, has ever even been nominated. And never mind, evidently, that the academy created the best animated feature award in 2001 to give the medium the recognition it deserves.

Disney, perhaps sensing a weak year headed into the most contentious period for awards campaigns, has decided to push Wall-E for the top award at this year’s Academy Awards. The studio took out an ad for the well-liked robot fable in Hollywood trade paper Variety (“Variet-E”) and will continue its push in the coming weeks. The nomination ballots for the 2009 ceremony will be mailed the day after Christmas.

As with most Pixar-spawned films, Wall-E is a no-brainer for the best animated feature award, but under academy rules it can also be nominated for best picture and take home the top honors. “If we didn’t do it, I don’t think we’d be giving the movie its due,” Richard Cook, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, told The New York Times.

In the same article, the paper noted that a handful of high-profile films will be in contention for top awards for the first time in years, including The Dark Knight and a pair of films that share a star, Tropic Thunder and Iron Man, which both hope to capitalize on the spiked popularity of Robert Downey Jr.

The 2009 Academy Awards are set to air Feb. 22 on ABC.

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