Iron Man 3 Nominated For An Oscar

While comic book movies rule the box office every year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is famous for snubbing the films at Oscar time. The fact that The Dark Knight failed to garner a Best Picture nomination despite being a critical hit generated such controversy it helped lead to the expansion of the number of nominees in the Best Picture category. However, there is a category where comic book movies do occasionally get nominated. The visual effects category recognizes the special effects, which are often a big part of blockbuster comic book movies. For this year's Oscars, the sole superhero comic book movie to get nominated for an Oscar was Iron Man 3. The film has been nominated for Best Visual Effects, along with Gravity, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The Lone Ranger, and Star Trek Into Darkness. Iron Man 3's visual effects team is listed as Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Erik Nash and Dan Sudick on the nomination. In Iron Man 3, a terrorist known as the Mandarin claims credit for an attack on Hollywood's Chinese Theatre, in which Tony Stark's head of security is injured, and Stark's own Malibu home is subsequently destroyed. Stark suits up once again as Iron Man and sets out in pursuit of the Mandarin and his allies. Iron Man 3 finished the year of 2013 as the highest-grossing film of the year at the U.S. box office, but it was recently passed at the U.S. box office by Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Iron Man 3 is currently the second highest-grossing film released in 2013 at the U.S. box office and the highest-grossing film of 2013 at the worldwide box office. At $1.2 billion, Iron Man 3 is actually the only film released in 2013 to cross a billion dollars at the worldwide box office.