THB #335 : 1st Annual Oscar Distribution & Marketing Round-Up, Pt 3 of 3

Welcome to the final Oscar round up of this Oscar season. I wasn’t sure what this was quite going to be when I started, but it has turned out to be a quick look at the road to Best Picture nomination on this long and winding road. (Don’t tell anyone… but plans for next season’s nominees have already begun.)

THB #332 : 1st Annual Oscar Distribution & Marketing Round-Up, Pt 1 of 3
THB #334 : 1st Annual Oscar Distribution & Marketing Round-Up, Pt 2 of 3

And awaaaayyyy we go!!!

The Fabelmans - Like Scorsese, Spielberg has not really been a creature of the festival circuit or the use of it as part of his festival strategy. However, this year is the 30th anniversary of his last Best Picture win, Schindler’s List (which came out in the same year as Jurassic Park, making it a legendary year for this legendary director/producer.) And 24 years ago, DreamWorks won its first Best Picture award, for American Beauty… which launched at the Toronto International Film Festival… a strategy devised in the season after Spielberg lost, with Saving Private Ryan, to Shakespeare in Love.

Like American Beauty, The Fabelmans won TIFF’s People’s Choice Award.

American Beauty went right to its theatrical release. The Fabelmans went into a 2 month lockdown (aside from 3 international festivals) before turning up at the AFI Fest in LA right before its theatrical release.

Did strategy kill The Fabelmans (nominated for 7 Oscars)? Probably not. But it didn’t help.

The idea of overdelivering being preferable to overpromising is not unique to this film or any film or really, most endeavors in life. By the time most people - and almost all Academy members - started seeing The Fabelmans in November, it had been the Oscar season frontrunner for months. Reviews and minutes of standing counted by “journalists” in Toronto were exuberant. Michelle Williams was unbeatable, the only question being whether she was Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress. Judd Hirsch was being told to clear space on the mantle. The question wasn’t whether Spielberg would win Best Director, but whether he would win Best Director AND Best Original Screenplay with Tony Kushner.

But then they had to show the movie.

There are people who see nothing but sunshine shining from the films reels. But a few major not-quite-what-we-hoped-for perspectives on the film became quickly defined. Personally, I think we - and I was one of those somewhat negative voices - were probably too harsh on the film. The film has, however you feel about the whole, some truly spectacular moments. Between it and the criminally critic-abused Babylon, 2022 is likely to be remembered as the year with 2 of the greatest films about making films ever made in all of cinematic history.

The release of the film suffered from something to which I often refer in the awards season… the opportunity for a reevaluation. This, of course, can be tricky. Team Spielberg still likes to claim that they lost the Private Ryan Oscar to dirty tricks by Weinstein… but the idea that the film was world-beating on the beach and fairly normal after, combined with the aged bookends, emerged without anyone having to whisper in anyone’s ear. It’s still a better movie than Shakespeare in Love (a frothy delight), but regardless, reevaluation of Ryan didn’t go well that season.

But since then, a lot of films have had a nice start, fallen back, and then ended up winning in the end by just plugging along. Crash, The Departed, No Country For Old Men, The Hurt Locker, Argo, 12 Years A Slave, Birdman, Spotlight, and CODA all had a moment or moments of, “Sorry… just not going to happen” in a real way mid-season.

By the time The Fabelmans reached the real world and industry audience, it was a binary question of a film. Is this is or is this ain’t the Best Picture winner? And in the few weeks between AFI and the first critics awards and then the tv group nominations… it wasn’t.

The box office was bad. Michelle Williams was eaten alive by Cate Blanchett (who may well end up being eaten by Michelle Yeoh). The Judi-Dench-length performance by Judd Hirsch became loved, but marginalized. Top Gun Maverick, Elvis, and Avatar 2 and their money outgunned the story - which we heard in Nov/Dec last year for West Side Story - about The Man.

I feel sad for The Man. I like The Man. I revere The Man. (And I don’t mean Manohla, though except for the sadness, these all still apply.) I would have been a lot happier if this was The Summing Up Of One Of The Great Careers Ever. In some ways, it is. But the truth is, this is a movie about exposing your darkest soul… and that is not Steven Spielberg’s wheel house.

The strategy locked the film into a bit of a box. And when it needed to escape, it just had no room to maneuver… which wouldn’t guarantee a win anyway. He’ll be back again.

Tár - You could tell from the first teaser trailer that Todd Field was pushing Focus to do what they really wouldn’t normally do… that he remains a genius… and that the movie was probably fucked when it came to any hope of winning Best Picture. I am not offering video elsewhere, but this is a key moment in understanding the strategy - let Todd do what he wants, both of his 2 films were Oscar nominated for writing and acting - on this film.