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The Aardman theatrical animation brand has become all but obsolete in the United States.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced yesterday afternoon that 20 animated features have been submitted for Oscar consideration in the 2014 animated feature category.

Every time you want to stop writing about "Frozen," it breaks another record. This weekend, the Disney smash hit remained in first place at the Japanese box office for an incomprehensible eleventh weekend in a row.

Although Greg Centineo, the producer of "Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return," had hoped for a big second weekend, the film plummeted 48% this weekend and ended up with a sophomore frame of $1.9 million. The movie has struggled to find a fan following, except for the film's Facebook page which is filled with a curiously large number of middle-aged and elderly people who absolutely adore the film.

Last weekend, "The Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return" recorded the worst opening ever for an animated film in more than 2,500 theaters. The film's exec producer, Greg Centineo, a former Florida coffee shop owner who raised over $100 million from investors to produce this film and its followups, thinks he knows what went wrong.

If you didn't hear about last weekend's opening of "Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return," don't worry because no one else in America did either. Opening in 2,575 theaters, the film eked out $3.7 million, which is the worst opening ever for an animated feature in saturated release (over 2,500 theaters). The previous animation record holder in this dubious category was the 2011 Weinstein Company release "Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil," which grossed $4.1M from 2,505 theaters.

Annecy, the longest-running and largest animation fesival, has announced the feature film selections for their upcoming festival in June. Nine films were chosen to compete for the Cristal award for feature film, which will be decided by a jury consisting of producer Didier Brunner (Les Armateurs), Cartoon Network exec Brian Miller and director Robert Morgan (The Cat with Hands, The Man in the Lower-Left Hand Corner of the Photograph). An additional fourteen features will screen out of competition.

Marcel Jean, the festival’s artistic director, said of this year’s feature selections:

“Many films have been created in a totally independent way, using traditional means, which illustrates the change in production habits that is opening the way for smaller companies and happening at the same moment as the production of digital 3D features is becoming more accessible. Japanese production has also particularly stood out through the number and quality of science fiction, horror or genre films.”

Feature Films—In Competition

• Arjun, The Warrior Prince
  Directed by Arnab Chaudhuri (India)

Feature Films—Out of Competition

• After School Midnighters
  Directed by Hitoshi Takekiyo (Japan)

Now that Disney’s Oz The Great and Powerful is a box office hit, let the Wizard of Oz remakes commence.Variety reports that Clarius Entertainment will theatrically release the 3-D CGI pic Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return in the first quarter of 2014. We posted the film’s trailer last fall, back when the film was called Dorothy of Oz, and the reaction was tepid.

The film is inspired by L. Frank Baum’s Wonderful Wizard of Oz as well as an Oz book series written by his great-grandson Roger Stanton Baum. Daniel St. Pierre (Everyone’s Hero) and Will Finn (The Road to El Dorado, Home on the Range) directed the film through Summertime Entertainment, and Bonne Radford produced with Summertime co-founders Ryan and Roland Carroll. Indian animation studio Prana (Hoodwinked! and Disney’s Tinker Bell movies) handled the animation production.