Oscar Futures
Keeping pace with Hollywoods perpetual awards horserace.
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These films can be very, very successful without beating their predecessors combined $235 million opening weekend.
(Or, it must be said, their level of quality.)
The same goes at the Oscars, whereBarbieandOppenheimerwere the defining event of the 2024 awards season.
The duo combined for 21 nominations and eight wins, including a Best Picture prize forOppie.
No matter how well they perform,WickedandGladiatorprobably arent coming close to that tally.
Now that expectations have been set, lets focus on the optimistic case.
Putting aside the comparison to last seasons two-headed colossus, how wellcanWickiator do this awards season?
Both are arriving at precisely the right time.
In this strike-marred season, consensus had it that the fall-festival crop was slightly weaker this year.
Now, alongsideDune: Part Two,WickedandGladiatorseem set to give the Oscars field a fresh dose of blockbusteroomph.
Prospects are more mixed elsewhere above the line.
But at a combined run time of over five hours, some might suggest these movies should have featuredmoreadaptation.
Fortunately, both campaigns can count on a powerful supporting performance to bolster their bids.
Denzel Washington has been almost unanimously acclaimed as the best part ofGladiator II.
Wickeds Ariana Grande feels less assured, if only because shes more of an awards-season interloper than Washington.
WithWickeds Oscar buzz growing by the day, more pundits expect Grande to get in than not.
Things are also looking up for Grandes onscreen frenemy, Cynthia Erivo.
Erivos arrival means an already stacked Best Actress race just got even tougher.
The musicallooks to be the early frontrunner in female-friendly categories like Costume Design and Production Design.
(Depending how bullish you are onThe Substance, maybe Makeup & Hairstyling, too.
So were that to happen, it would certainly be defying pundits expectations as well as gravity.
Oscar Futures: Tangled Up in … Gold?
Best Picture
A Complete Unknown
Something is happening here, and Idoknow what it is.
(If they can get past the fact its a very normal film about an abnormal man.)
Of course, it helps that Mangold can simply cut to a musical number whenever he wants.
If he couldnt get nomd forFord v Ferrari, I cant see Mangold getting in this year.
But when Chu does sink his teeth into the numbers, something wonderful can emerge.
If only the Globes had a separate category for Musical/Comedy directors, too.
Ive been looking for someone to take the fifth spot in Best Actor.
Knowing the Academys affinity for music biopics, it may be him, babe.
(Wouldwe call it an Oscar?)
She is the films Rushmore: charismatic, haughty, and vulnerable, saysPeter Bradshaw.
Her face exerts a planetary pull on everything else onscreen and an impossible thing to look away from.
Its almost as if,without words we communicate with our eyes.
Even that couldnt get the Orkney addiction drama to crack the $1 million mark.
Can Ronans candidacy, er, outpace her films underperformance?
(Most of whose cast reprises their roles for the film.)
It becomes less about the man telling the story and more about the story itself.
As the movie hits Netflix this weekend, buzz has been dwindling.
But as a human Kermit the Frog, hes a gee-golly delight.
As with Zoe Saldana inEmilia Perez, shes arguably a co-lead.
(Full disclosure: She, Chalamet, and I took lessons with the same vocal coach.
)A Complete Unknownmay share theAnoraproblem of having two supporting performances that crowd each other out, awards-wise.
Nevertheless, for an actress I only know fromTop Gun: Maverick, this is a real breakout moment.
