Oscars 2019: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Wins Best Animated Feature Film

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has won the 2019 Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film, beating out the likes of Incredibles 2, Isle of Dogs, Mirai, and Ralph Breaks the Internet for the Academy Award. The Spider-Man spin-off was expected to take home the prize, given the critical acclaim that has been showered on it since release, and its win last month at the 2019 Golden Globes. This is the first win for Sony Pictures Animation at the Oscars, which has been dominated by Disney and Pixar — the two were nominated here, as well — since the award's inception in 2001. Among other awards, Green Book won the Oscar for Best Picture and Alfonso Cuarón for Best Director.

Oscars 2019 Winners — the Full List

“Thank you, Academy and Sony. We share it with the cast and crew, there's 800 filmmakers who pushed boundaries and took risks, to make people feel powerful and seen,” producer Christopher Miller said in his acceptance speech at the 2019 Oscars.

“So when we hear that somebody -- somebody's kid was watching the movie and turned to them and said, 'He looks like me. They speak Spanish like us.' We feel like we already won,” producer Phil Lord added.

"To our audience: we want you all to know, we see you, you are powerful, this world needs you,” Peter Ramsey, one of the three Into the Spider-Verse directors, said.

Drawn with a mix of computer-generated art and hand-drawn techniques, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the story of Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), the half-African-American, half-Puerto Rican version of Spider-Man introduced in 2011 by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli. It's set in a multiverse and features several other Spider-heroes, including two Peter Parkers (Jake Johnson and Chris Pine), Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), and Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage).

In our review of Into the Spider-Verse, we called it “fresh and unique” for its visual aesthetic and how it embraces the wildness and zaniness of its source material, and praised it for nailing the comic-book look co-writer Phil Lord and producer Christopher Miller were going for, and self-referential and self-aware writing. “It takes a wacky comic storyline with an outlandish concept, and transfers it onto the screen in a fascinating and fresh manner,” we concluded.

Produced with a budget of $90 million, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has grossed over $359 million (about Rs. 2,549.57 crores) at the worldwide box office. The animated film's success has convinced Sony Pictures to put a sequel and spin-off into development, with the latter focusing on three generations of female Spider-heroes: Spider-Gwen, Jessica Drew aka Spider-Woman, and Cindy Moon aka Silk.