"Kells" Producer GKIDS in WSJ Profile

When it comes to winning Oscars Pixar is the studio to beat, but the Disney subsidiary may be getting some competition, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The financial paper profiles GKIDS, a three-year-old licensing and distribution company that has seen Oscar nominations go to each of the three films it's released.

The firm's first film, The Secret of Kells, lost to Pixar's Up in 2010. This year, however, GKIDS has put two films in contention--Chico & Rita and A Cat in Paris--even as Pixar has been shut out.

Both films carry budgets of less than $15 million, and GKIDS's president says his company is exploiting a gap in the marketplace by providing idiosyncratic animated features with adult appeal instead of $100 million summer tentpoles.