Animated features were overlooked but vfx flicks got a lot of love as nominees for the 2007 MTV Movie Awards were announced today. Leading the pack with a total of five nominations is Warner Bros.’ 300, followed by Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest with four nods. Both films are up for the Best Movie award, contending with DreamWorks’ Blades of Glory, 20th Century Fox’s Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan and Fox Searchlight’s Little Miss Sunshine.
Gerard Butler, who stars as Spartan King Leonidis in 300, is up for Best Performance, along with Pirates stars Johnny Depp and Keira Knightley. Fillion out the category are Jennifer Hudson and Beyonc’ Knowles for Dreamgirls, and Will Smith for The Pursuit of Happyness. In addition, Butler’s 300 co-star, Lena Headey, is in the running for Breakthrough Performance.
Also nominated from the second Pirates movie is Bill Nighy, whose portrayal of the largely animated Davy Jones earned him spot in the Best Villain category. Also in the running are Tobin Bell for Saw III, Jack Nicholson for The Departed, Rodrigo Santoro for 300 and Meryl Streep for The Devil Wears Prada.
The battle between Leonidas and the ‘Uber Immortal’ in 300 is among the brawls nominated for Best Fight. Other contenders includes Jack Black and H’ctor Jim’nez vs. Los Duendes in Nacho Libre, Sacha Baron Cohen vs. Ken Davitian in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Will Ferrell vs. Jon Heder in Blades of Glory and Uma Thurman vs. Anna Faris in My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
Visual effects extravaganzas are also well represented in a new category added this year, Best Summer Movie You Haven’t Seen Yet. The nominees are 20th Century Fox’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (June 15), DreamWorks/Paramount’s Transformers (July 4), Warner Bros.’ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (July 13), Universal’s Evan Almighty (June 22) and New Line Cinema’s Hairspray (July 20) and Rush Hour 3 (August 10).
Hosted by comedian Sarah Silverman, The 2007 MTV Movie Awards will be broadcast live, for the first time ever, on June 3 on MTV. To see a complete list of nominees, go to www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1558337/story.jhtml.
