Nimona, an Oscar nominee and one of Netflix’s best animated films, may have just taken YouTube by storm after its surprise limited free release on the site, but the film will be completely scrapped in 2021. I was about to get hit.
The film, which is nominated for this year’s Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, will be available for free viewing on YouTube for one week starting February 19th. According to some sources, it has been viewed 3 million times during that time. Tweet from co-director Troy Quan.
However, Nimona was almost never released. 20th Century Fox Animation acquired the rights to Stevenson’s graphic novel in 2015, and the film was to be produced by Fox subsidiary Blue Sky Studios and released in 2020. However, Disney’s acquisition of Fox in 2019 put a damper on those plans. As a result of this merger, Nimona’s release date was pushed back to 2021 and then to 2022, until Disney announced the closure of Blue Sky Studios in February 2021 and Nimona was removed from Disney’s release schedule.
However, it was announced that the release date has been shortened to April 2022, with Annapurna Pictures picking up the film and Netflix releasing it in 2023. Bruno and Quan, who had previously worked on the film’s story, were brought on as directors. After premiering at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2023, Nimona finally arrived on Netflix later that month.
Set in a futuristic medieval world, the film follows Barrister Baldheart (voiced by Riz Ahmed), a disgraced knight accused of a crime he didn’t commit. Unfortunately for Barrister, the only person who can prove his innocence is Nimona (Chloë Grace Moretz), the mischievous shapeshifter he has been trained to destroy. It was a huge hit with critics, receiving a score of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, and was praised for its LGBT representation.
Based on the graphic novel of the same name by N.D. Stevenson, the film is co-directed by Nick Bruno and Quan, and the cast also includes Six Feet Under’s Frances Conroy, Pose’s Indya Moore, and RuPaul. are connected.
Although now removed from YouTube, Nimona is still available to stream on Netflix. If you want to know more, check out our other picks for the best Netflix movies to fill your viewing list.
