THB #631: 12 Weeks To Oscar - Before The TV Shows Show Up

One more Oscar prediction piece before the Penske-owned Golden Globes nominations Monday morning, voted on by a list of international voters most of whom no one in the industry seems to know much, being presented by 2 TV stars, in the midst of a lot of rumors about whether the former HFPA members got paid as promosed and whether the entire Todd Bohley/Jay Penske billionaire’s picnic production will get broken up by the California Attorney General.

In other words… the Globes are sooooo legit.

When everyone stops laughing, we can get going with the newsletter…

The last time I wrote about Best Picture (Nov 21), Wicked was about to open after 3 days of “previews,” Gladiator II was about to generate about half of the Wicked box office opening, and it was the day after the first screening of A Complete Unknown had just happened. The other December release that was a potential BP contender that had not been shown at Aug/Sept festivals, Nosferatu, had been screening since November 7.

Has anything changed in the last couple of weeks?

Not really.

The buzz - oy - seems to be stuck in September. Whatever the box office situation, there has been a lot of resistance - not in the trades, where baby oil flows - to the November and December films. And both of the major critics groups stayed out of the Netflix business completely.

But the whole thing seems rather schizophrenic… and in the case, I mean multiple personalities… more than 2.

If you listened to the critics groups, Oscar would be a jump ball between The Brutalist and Anora, with a side of Nickel Boys.

But that is not a likely future in the real world of Oscar that we have all lived in for a very, very long time. A24 and Neon have brought the big prize home before. So it’s not a lack of faith in their considerable skills. But Anora played out a couple of weeks ago and without a return to theaters or two, it will not get past $15 million domestic… which is more than double any Sean Baker movie before... which is perhaps why he hadn’t gotten the love from The Academy he has deserved in the past. Meanwhile, Nickel Boys lands in NY next weekend and LA the weekend after and The Brutalist lands in Limited on December 20, so who knows how they will do?

You have to ask yourself… are these the films that Academy voters will settle into over the holidays and embrace as frontrunners? They aren’t going away… but they aren’t anywhere close to undeniable either.

I have been talking about a stat that developed over the 15 seasons of the expanded Best Picture field… that after the previous decades being dominated by wins by films that were 1 of the top 2 grossers, since The Expansion, not a single Top 2 film had won Best Picture… until Oppenheimer broke that “rule.”

But that said, putting aside the oddball COVID years of CODA and Nomadland, the winners have been seen as commercial winners in 11 of the other 13 seasons. Not mega-hits, but at least “pretty strong.” This includes Birdman ($42m domestic), Spotlight ($45m), The Artist ($45m), Parasite ($53m), and 12 Years a Slave ($57 million) amongst them. (The Hurt Locker, $17m and Moonlight, $22m before winning and $28m final are the low tier.)

That doesn’t mean that it can’t happen for films that gross under $25 million. But it’s hard. And in both of the lower-than seasons, there was a major David vs Goliath story… Avatar and Jim vs The Hurt Locker and ex-wife Kathryn and then Moonlight vs La La Land in a battle steeped in racial tonality.

As the televised awards nominations roll out this week, I expect to definitely see Anora and The Brutalist… less sure about Nickel Boys, though they have been doing a lot of events in the last few weeks, so we will see. But they will not be the dominant titles. They will be amongst the titles, along with more mainstream films, like your Wicked and your A Complete Unknown and your Emilia Pérez and maybe even your Nosferatu, amongst others.

Here are the films that were recognized by LAFCA and NYFCC, first by Rotten Tomatoes number and then by the number of mentions (inc runner-ups)…

Sing Sing - 98% - 1
The Brutalist - 97% - 5
Hard Truths - 97% - 2
Anora - 93% - 5
A Real Pain - 92% - 2
Nickel Boys - 88% - 4
September 5 - 83% - 1

And the contending films unmentioned by the 2 critics groups.
Nosferatu - 95%
Conclave - 93%
Wicked - 89%
I’m Still Here - 88%
Emilia Perez - 76%
Gladiator II - 72%

New York Film Critics Circle, 1 of only 2 groups voting so far that has any history of actual clout on other voters during award season, went with The Brutalist for Picture and Actor (Adrien Brody). Likely to be reflected in other votes to come, Actress (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), Supporting Actor (Kieran Culkin) and Screenplay (never before nominated Sean Baker). Stretching it a bit were their Director picks (RaMell Ross) and Supporting Actress (the legendary Carol Kane). In their doc category, No Other Land won and seems to be winning everywhere else, even without US distribution… perhaps because it hasn’t gotten US distribution.

On the left coast, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association met today and kept the weirdness going. In the gender-free acting categories, Supporting had 4 men and Lead had 4 women. Hmmm… what are the odds? Anora and The Brutalist dominated, back and forth, with some more love for Nickel Boys.

When the critics seem committed to the non-mainstream, there is always the urge to assume that they know something. And they do. They know what they prefer. They aren’t there to lead Oscar in this direction or that direction. And in this season, they seem pretty committed to these 3 films. Fair enough.

So even after the coastal critics called it, the Oscar Best Picture field seems to still clearly include the 2 films hot out of Cannes, Emilia Pérez and Anora. Fall festival movies Conclave and The Brutalist. Early box office hit sequel with the pedigree of its progenitor being nominated Dune II. And November’s massive cult-y hit, Wicked. Of all these titles, only The Brutalist - the longest shot of the group going into the season - is getting anything from LA or NY Critics groups.

Searchlight has been rolling out A Complete Unknown as “the last movie of the season,” which seems to be confusing a lot of Film Twitter. It’s impossible to me to imagine the film not being Best Picture nominated - and the frontrunner to win, ultimately - and seriously contending to win at least 2 acting awards, along with a boatload of craft noms, screenplay, and likely in a very competitive season, Director.

That leaves 3 slots.

What gets in?