Time is short for anyone vying for Oscars this season In fact, it’s very, very short. There are just six days of first round nomination voting. And final voting begins just 16 days after the nominees are announced. It brings a whole new meaning to “you win in phase one,” doesn’t it?
When the 92nd Academy Awards are telecast on Feb. 9 America will be in the middle of a competitive presidential primary process (hint, don’t expect anyone to care about screenings for 2021 films till after Nov. 3, 2020) and the industry will be desperate to take a big sigh of relief following a jam packed January calendar that appears to be one for the awards season ages. But even with Venice, Telluride and TIFF just days away there are things we know. Everybody in town knows which movies are the real contenders and which aren’t. There will always a surprise or two, but if the movie isn’t positioned right initially putting together an campaign at the last minute rarely, if ever, leads to Oscar gold. You have to have your shit together at the starting line or risk getting left far, far behind.
READ MORE: Cannes gets an Oscars jolt from Tarantino, Parasite and more
Just something to keep in mind as we present our annual Oscar in August thoughts. Or should that be thoughts and prayers for anyone in the Oscar game this season?
Expect more non-English Best Picture nominees
Sure, “Roma” had Netflix’s marketing engine and massive critical acclaim behind it, but don’t look at the film’s 10 nominations as an outlier. If “Roma” hadn’t been a sensation than fellow Foreign Language Film nominee “Cold War”,” which earned both Directing and Cinematography nods, would have been a much bigger story. And if you think this isn’t partially due to the influence of more international members as the Academy expands you need to pay closer attention. This year actually has two films that could surprise in the Best Picture race. SPC landed a BP nod for “Amour” earlier in the decade and don’t think they can’t pull it off for Pedro Almodovar’s “Pain & Glory.” NEON hasn’t had a Best Picture nominee yet, but audiences who can find their way into a screening are raving about Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” and, well, speaking of that particular drama…
Bong Joon-Ho will earn a Best Director nomination
Best Director is always competitive, but expect Joon-Ho’s masterpiece to win a number of key critics groups and land on a swarm of top 10 lists. Moreover, the Korean-language film already has six (!) members of the Directors branch behind it, the six who were on the Cannes jury that awarded it the Palme d’Or. Those notable filmmakers include Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alice Rohrwacher, Yorgos Lanthimos, Pawel Pawlikowski, Robin Campillo and Kelly Reichardt. Joon-Ho also has had a growing legion of vocal fans among his peers so don’t be surprised if he has a genuine moment this season with his first Oscar nod.
There may be no locks for Best Actress or Best Actor
Contenders rise and contenders fall and the upcoming festival season will push a number of the faul players to the sidelines. That being said, both the Best Actress and Best Actor races look like bloodbaths. On the Actress side you have legit contenders such as Awkwafina (“The Farwell”), Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet”), Scarlett Johansson (“Marriage Story”), Alfre Woodard (“Clemency”), Saoirse Ronan (“Little Women”), Kristen Stewart (“Seberg”) and Charlize Theron (“Bombshell”). The Actors start with Antonio Banderas (“Pain and Glory”), Matt Damon (“Ford vs. Ferrari), Robert De Niro (“The Irishman”), Leonardo DiCaprio (“Once Upon A Time In Hollywood”), Adam Driver “Marriage Story”), Taron Edgerton (“Rocketman”), Robert Pattinson (“The Lighthouse”), Jonathan Pryce (“The Pope”), Daniel Kaluuya (“Queen and Slim”), Eddie Murphy (“Dolemite Is My Name”), Brad Pitt (“Ad Astra”), Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”), Eddie Redmayne (“The Aeronauts”) and Mark Ruffalo (“Dark Waters”). You see any genuine locks among either list? Sure you do.
“Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” is your first Best Picture nominee
Sony Pictures would clearly appreciate this not getting too much play this early in the season but what stat do you want to look at? Every film Quentin Tarantino has made that has earned over $100 million has been nominated for Oscar’s top prize. Four of Leonardo DiCaprio‘s last six films have made the cut. DiCaprio and Pitt have both starred in Tarantino films that were nominated. It has the filmmakers’ second highest critics score on Metacritic after “Pulp Fiction” (no small feat). Since the field expanded beyond five nominees for 2010 there has only been one year a movie not released in the summer wasn’t nominated, the 86th Oscars. That makes “Once” and/or “The Farewell” the prime candidates. Oh, and did we mention despite some polarizing reaction from audiences that the industry adores it?
“Ford v Ferrari” and “Marriage Story” are likely your second and third Best Picture nominees
Full disclosure, we have not seen either film, but buzz like this is hard to keep quiet. James Mangold‘s “Ford v Ferrari” and Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” are almost assuredly Best Picture nominees. They know it. Their competitors know it. The barista at Verve coffee on Melrose knows it. Moreover, this is nothing new. Last year it was “Roma” and “A Star is Born,” “Get Out” and “Dunkirk” the year prior, “La La Land” and “Manchester by the Sea” the year before that, etc. etc. Who knows what will win the top prize, but you can easily start filling up the lineup even this early.
“Bombshell” “Queen & Slim,” “Little Women,” “Dark Waters” or “Cats” are earning Best Picture nods
No one would discredit the success of Venice, Telluride and TIFF for launching Best Picture winners. In fact, you pretty much have to debut there to win at all now. But a post-fall festival Best Picture race nominee is a staple of the awards landscape. In fact, the last time there wasn’t a Best Picture nominee that “debuted” in November (meaning first guild or festival screening for anyone) was 2008. Often two late comers make the cut, but sometimes it’s just one. Place your bets on this year’s offerings.
Sundance has one Best Picture hope and it’s “The Farewell”
2019 was an off year for Sundance in terms of Best Picture nominees and 2020 may be just as dicey. Lulu Wang‘s moving family melodrama won over audiences at Sundance and has been a strong art house hit for A24 this summer. It will definitely be in the Best Picture discussion, but if it doesn’t make the cut it’s an ominious trend for the festival that has lost a bit of its luster the past few years despite “Get Out” (a sneak world premiere) and “Call Me By Your Name’s” nods in 2018. With the 2020 festival being the last with John Cooper at the helm whether the Park City staple continues its run as an awards season supplier as it has been for most of the past decade remains to be seen.
There’s always going to be a controversy, prepare yourself for it
Last year was supposed to be a drama free year. The mistakes of the past were supposed to have among scared every studios or distributor into doing their due dilegiance when it came to any of their potential individual nominees. Sure, perhaps one or two contenders needed to do a more careful twitter history search, but for the most part they weren’t the problem. Who knew it would be The Academy which would find itself with not one, not two, but three controversies earning worldwide attention? In this age of social media almost nothing gets swept under the carpet and when the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue tweets about anything and everything you can only avoid drama for so long. The Oscars, their global influence and Hollywood’s domination of the media news cycle (and as a distraction from the rest of the world’s problems) is simply too strong. So, something’s coming. Just hope you’re not part of it.
Olivia Wilde is going to get snubbed for directing “Booksmart”
We’re gonna assume the voting committees of the Independent Spirit Awards reward her with a directing nomination. We think she’s a lock for a DGA nod for First-Time Feature Film and either she or the film will earn special mentions from a few critics groups at the end of the year. And maybe the film even finds a way to become a Golden Globe nominee in the Comedy or Musical category. Oscar? Deserving or not it was always going to be a tough road, but any chances she had were scuttled by the perceived box office “failure” of the movie. Cetain members of the media took Except, it wasn’t a failure. The UAR release grossed $22.6 million in the U.S. During much of the film’s publicity campaign the studio and Wilde herself (at no doubt the suggest of the powers at be) were cagey over the cost of the movie. Some industry observers thought it cost anywhere from $12-18 million, but it wasn’t until Annapurna became entangled in bankruptcy proceedings that it was revealed it cost just $6 million. Granted, it’s unclear if that cost includes revenue from selling overseas rights to Netflix, but even so that means “Booksmart” is at least on track to break even either theatrically or from ancillaries. In studio terms that’s a ground rule double. But the narrative from the opening weekend was that it was a “bomb.” The story should have been that a $6 million indie comedy with two relatively unknown actresses earned over $20 million. Instead, the film still has a financial failure tag which made Annapurna look bad and, now, hangs over Wilde’s Oscar candidacy. Head scratching.
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