"Thank you, members of the Academy,
for inviting us to the party by creating this category to begin with," Warner
said. "I want to thank my fellow producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, who has a love
for animation bordering on obsession and is the real reason we're here tonight."
The film, produced by DreamWorks SKG and the special-effects
company Pacific Data Images, starred Mike Myers as the voice of Shrek, Eddie
Murphy as talkative Donkey and Cameron Diaz as Princess Fiona, reluctantly betrothed
to a tiny tyrant voiced by John Lithgow.
Shrek was one of last year's highest grossing films,
earning nearly $268 million in the United States and millions more on home video.
Many animators have long supported an Academy Award honoring
feature-length animation, despite objections from some who feared it would diminish
those films' chances against live-action fare in categories such as best picture.
The only animated film to earn a best-picture nomination
was 1991's Beauty and the Beast.
A special award a full-sized Oscar and seven miniature
ones was given to Walt Disney in 1939 for Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs, the first feature-length animated movie. Another special Oscar went
to 1995's Toy Story, the first full-length computer-animated picture.
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