Love them or hate them, superhero films are dominating the box office. Just look at the record-breaking run of “Black Panther,” most recently, for example. For the past decade, these superhero films have been the biggest things to hit theaters not called “Star Wars.” And if you listen to the writers of the upcoming “Avengers: Infinity War,” it’s about time they get some awards consideration, as well.
Granted, during an interview on the set of ‘Infinity War,’ the writers Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus were apparently being a little tongue-in-cheek when they mentioned how they don’t understand how superhero films, particularly the upcoming ‘Infinity War,’ have been left out of the Oscars conversation, but there’s definitely a kernel of truth in their comments.
“So, ‘Lord of the Rings,’ big epic thing, right? It’s three movies! This is 23 movies!” said McFeely. “When is someone going to get [Kevin] Feige the [Irving G.] Thalberg award. All he’s doing is remaking Hollywood. Please!”
“’Return of the King‘ is no better or worse than the other two,” says Markus. “It got cumulative awards. And frankly, if you go back and look at it you’re like, ‘Really, you gave that Oscars?’ Maybe they had extra Oscars that year.”
While we shouldn’t expect ‘Infinity War’ to garner a dozen Oscar noms, the truth is, these guys have a point, even if they’re semi-joking. The Academy has long been thought of as a group of stodgy old Hollywood types that barely have time to watch the nominated films, let alone all 20-or-so Marvel Cinematic Universe films. That being said, what Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios have done over the last decade is completely unprecedented, and definitely deserving of some recognition. But it hasn’t happened yet because these characters wear colorful costumes and make jokes.
The Irving G. Thalberg Award, that McFeely mentioned is a good start. This honorary Oscar is given to “creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production.” The last several winners of the award include filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, Dino De Laurentiis, and Warren Beatty. If any producer in the last decade deserves an award for “consistently high quality” motion pictures, it definitely should be Feige, right?
While Rotten Tomatoes isn’t the be-all-end-all arbiter of quality films, Feige has a total of 16 films from his Marvel Cinematic Universe that are “Certified Fresh,” with 8 of them scoring 90% or more. That has to count for something. So, even if you write off those 8 films as being popcorn film non-sense, it’s still the same popcorn film non-sense that has a higher Tomatometer score than “Darkest Hour” and “The Post,” which were both nominated for Best Picture Oscars this year.
That isn’t to say that ‘Infinity War’ should be a Best Picture nominee, but perhaps it’s time that these awards ceremonies start paying attention to these massive crowd-pleasing films.