THB #547: Oscargasm 97 - The 17 Best Picture Contenders (6/1/24)

39 Weeks To Oscar

Cannes is over. It was intense. Lots of love… mostly for actresses and movies that would have to be called “indie” by most standards.

Here is my annual reminder that Cannes means nothing to the domestic release of movies… not the big ones that show up and have releases within a couple months of the festival and certainly not the ones that get bought and show up in the fall.

Winning awards at Cannes is great and beautiful and valuable. But for marketing movies - including awards movies - it is a kick-off of the real work domestically. And for the big studio movies, like Furiosa and Horizon, it is really a platform to reach the international market, not the domestic one. There is virtually no news coming out of Cannes that an American journalist couldn’t cover from their couch in Des Moines. That is, except seeing movies, which only really matters for about a half dozen American writers and in fact, confuses the hell out of most movie writers who forget that their personal tastes are not news.

So, you might ask, why do domestic media outlets treat Cannes like the second coming each year? Because the trip is expensive, the weather is usually beautiful (always spotted with some showers), and writers have to rationalize the expense to get their outlets to keep paying. The Penske Trades are an exception. They do a good chunk of business during Cannes, as publicity and marketing platforms. You would expect world papers like The New York Times to cover closely. But for most, it’s a vacation where you don’t have to get into a bathing suit, you get to soak in an art form that you love, and between movies, you eat on a beach filled with beautiful people and even get to go to some lavish parties where some of the talent will pretend not to hate you.

I love going to Cannes. Great festival. Much better view of the cinema of the world than most other festivals… the exception being Berlin, which is much less competition oriented, even though they give out Bears. But how often does that full frame of Cannes get more than 1 or 2 1000-word stories in early May? Not often. Cannes is a glorious indulgence for American media… Calgon take me away!!!

Not so for U.S.-based distributors. They are there looking for movies to buy… which is a butt-load cheaper than making them themselves.

There were, as usual, a grand total of zero commercial movies in this year’s Cannes competition. That doesn’t mean there won’t be Oscar nominations, Criterion editions, and deep, deep love for some of these movies. There will be. Just not a lot of money. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (Is quoting Seinfeld off limits these days?)

There were 4 potentially Oscar-important sales at Cannes this year. One to Neon, one to Netflix, and 2 to MUBI. But even with all the attention that a naked Demi Moore got from The Substance, it was already a huge leap to try to get it into the Best Picture race. Likewise, the deservedly beloved Andrea Arnold’s latest, Bird, is a very long-shot for pushing into Best Picture.

That leaves 2 distributors who have had great success getting Best Picture nominations, Neon and Netflix, with 2 movies that took home awards at Cannes. Anora, Sean Baker’s latest, won the Big Prize at Cannes and seems like it will cruise to his first Best Picture nomination. On the other hand, there were great hopes for Baker’s The Florida Project and Red Rocket, both released and pushed hard by A24, receiving only an acting nom for Dafoe. Mikey Madison is the only “known” actor in the film and she is best known for the sensational but little seen Better Things series and for being extremely-killed by DiCaprio in the pool in Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood.

(By the way, another Manson girl from the Tarantino movie, Margaret Qualley, co-stars in the aforementioned The Substance, as the re-built version of Demi Moore. A third Mansonette, Dakota Fanning, has heat for the Netflix series, Ripley. It pays to be a QT killer, I guess.)

The other serious Cannes horse will be Emilia Perez, the latest from Jacques Audiard, one of the great French directors of his generation and one of my personal favorites. Best Known for A Prophet, Rust & Bone, and Palme d’ Or winner Dheepan, Audiard has often gotten the short end of the Oscar stick, including the 2010 Foreign Language category in which Audiard’s only nominated film, A Prophet and Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon lost to The Secret in Their Eyes.

At the center of Emilia Perez are 4 actresses who won Best Actress at Cannes. The most famous is Selena Gomez… the most touted is Zoe Saldana… the least known is Adriana Paz… and the title character is Karla Sofía Gascón.

At this point, Emilia Perez is Netflix’s best shot at a Best Picture slot this season. So expect a full on Roma push. The movie is not going to be everyone’s favorite. But it will build a very strong base of support.

Moving on from Cannes movies (count 2 of my 14 top contenders), let’s look at all the serious contenders that have already opened this year…

Dune: Part II looks to slot in, as its predecessor did. The film currently leads the domestic and international box office for the year. It was nominated for 10 Oscars and won 6 in the competition for 2022 films. This year’s sequel is likely to also be very strong in the below-the-line categories, though the unbridled enthusiasm for Picture, Director, and Screenplay fell like they will be a bit more challenged this time, as familiarity breeds not so much contempt as… familiarity.

That’s it! None of the May titles in which so many of us felt hope are going to remembered for a lot more than the sense that there is a box office malaise this month. Not fair… there will be some noms for Furiosa and maybe even for The Fall Guy and IF, but Best Picture is not in the cards. Sorry.

That leaves us with 11 top candidates for Best Picture that we have not seen. (a couple may have junketed by now)

Let’s start with the major studio releases, in order of how much we have to go on…

Joker: Folie à Deux - The first one got nominated. It was a risky take and it paid off. This one is an even riskier take - a murderous love story with songs and dancing - and it seems like an inevitable commercial hit that will get a ton of love and respect.

Wicked - The first act of one of Broadway’s most popular shows ever based on one of the most popular movie stories ever. How big can this thing be? The leads are famous… but the more famous of the pair, Ariana Grande, has never been a non-animated, non-cameo-ing actor in a theatrical movie release that grossed even $1 million. Cynthia Erivo has a bit more of a theatrical release track record, but her top title is in support in Widows ($76m) and her #2 is as a lead, in Harriet ($43m). That doesn’t mean the risk won’t pay off… but it is a risk. Musicals are a risk.