We’re looking at Oscar contenders as they release and trying to determine which films have potential and which have wasted it. Let’s look back at the month of May and see what films succeeded and faltered. Then we’ll look forward to July and see what has some potential.
Wesley Lovell’s Thoughts
May Retrospective
May was a mixed bag for a lot of films, some hot Oscar prospects had dismal box office performances while others had good ones. We’ll start with the biggest flop of the month and that’s Back to Black, an Amy Winehouse biopic that has great audience reviews but abysmal critical response. The film has only accumulated just over $6 million in spite of being a wide release. That is terrible and with critics not supporting it, the film’s Oscar prospects certainly ended this month.
The other three releases were varying degrees of successful with critics and audiences but only one of them managed to put up a strong box office take.
We’ll start with Mars Express. Debuting to universally positive reviews, Mars Express had a lot of potential to reach the anime market with its similarities to Ghost in the Shell. Yet, an incredibly small number of people showed up to the film. Perhaps it could have started with a 2-theater release and built up a positive reputation into a juggernaut, but they opened in almost 300 theaters and came out with a less-than-$500 per screen average. It could still be an Oscar contender due to its high critical support but a big box office would have gone a long way to making its case.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a prequel to the 2015 hit: Mad Max: Fury Road. Perhaps it was the absence of Max but this film opened poorly and has diminished since. While it could still do well internationally, in the US it appears to be head for a sub-$100 million finish. That’s a pretty weak performance for a potential franchise blockbuster. That said, George Miller’s films have always been entertaining and critically acclaimed and while audiences gave it very favorable reviews, they just didn’t seem interested in seeing the film in theaters, which is a shame.
Finally, we have a film that did well with critics (not as well as Furiosa) and also managed to do solid numbers at the box office. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has become one of those enduring franchises that gets butts in the seat even if it is growing long in the tooth. That it’s telling trilogy-contained stories rather than going on ad nauseum and not coming out once a year or every other year might help. Yet, it’s still a mystery why this film did better than Furiosa because they both have similar profiles. Either way, Apes has guaranteed itself a slot in Best Visual Effects if nothing else while Furiosa may still get some craft nominations but it won’t do nearly as well as its predecessor.
July Forecast
Now, let’s look forward to July with three sequels, two originals, and one adaptation.
We’ll begin with the only title that isn’t releasing wide. Sing Sing was an acclaimed festival entry starring recently-minted Oscar nominee Colman Domingo in a prison drama about a convict attempting to establish a successful theater program within the prison system while hoping to one day earn parole. Domingo is by all accounts tremendous and there’s decent word for Clarence Maclin who plays himself. This is the kind of small film that has done well at the Oscars before but only when the buzz can sustain from release to Oscar season. This film is coming out in the middle of the summer, which might make it stand out at the specialty box office but it will have too many months to keep that momentum going and I’m not sure how well it can do.
Before we get into the other originals, let’s talk about the three sequels that are hoping to find varying success at the Oscars.
We start things off with an Animated Feature contender, Despicable Me 4. Its Oscar chances are quite slim. This is a series that has always struggled to gain a toehold with the Academy. This in spite of two of its entries being among the best of the year. The likelihood, however, that we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns is high and if the Academy hasn’t taken many of its sequels and prequels and spinoffs seriously suggests this won’t fare well either.
A film that was nominated for Best Visual Effects in 1996 has finally, 28 years later, gotten a sequel. Why it took so long is anybody’s guess but the film seems more like a spiritual sequel than a literal one. It doesn’t appear the original cast makes much of an impression in this film and while the premise is similar, just giving it a plural title doesn’t differentiate itself enough from the original. Even this many year’s later, it’s obviously a cash grab. Now that the ’80s have been mined dry, the 1990s may be next. If they’ve advanced the technology since the first film, it could be quite the spectacle and Best Visual Effects nomination could be in the offing but bad reviews could doom the film still.
Finally, we have a film that has even less of a chance of being an Oscar nominee than Despicable Me 4. Deadpool & Wolverine is sure to make a mint at the box office. It’s the most talked about film of the year already. Topping Dune 2 could well be within reach. The thing is, the film isn’t likely to be on Oscar’s radar except in the Best Makeup & Hairstyling category and even there, it hasn’t done very well. Still, a box office hit along with stellar critical response, it could manage to make the cut and even if not, it’s still possible. This is the group that nominated Click after all.
Now we dive into two big question marks.
Fly Me to the Moon stars Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in a period comedy about a Hollywood producer hired to fake the moon landing should the unthinkable happen and the moon mission is a colossal failure. Set in the 1960s, the film certainly looks like it could be a contender in some of the craft categories such as Production Design, Costume Design, and Sound. The problem is that it’s a comedy and several similar-era comedies of the last couple of decades have been utterly ignored by the Academy. I see little reason to believe this film can overcome a lot of the big year-end blockbusters that will crowd out small comedies like these at the Oscars.
Last of the July forecasts is Dìdi. Writer/director Sean Wang has taken his childhood and parlayed it into an Oscar-nominated short film Nai Nai and Wài Pó. Sure, it was the least interesting of the five nominees but that was successful enough to make him think that his own childhood would do well as a feature length film. As a coming of age drama, it doesn’t look to have much new to present but the Academy does love this kind of thing and, right now, it seems like a solid contender. That could change if critics hate the film but even if they like it a little, it could still compete. The box office could be an issue. It’s making a rather bad decision of opening wide. This isn’t the kind of film that does well with a summer wide release, so unless they scale that back dramatically, a bomb at the box office might just doom its burgeoning chances.
And now, let’s hear from Pete and Thomas.
Pete Patrick’s Thoughts
May Retrospective
May gave us The Fall Guy, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, IF, and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga that might factor into the sound and visual effects categories at this year’s Oscars, but even those nominations are, pardon the pun, iffy.
July Forecast
Twisters, the long-awaited sequel to the 1996 film, Twister, starring red-hot Glen Powell and the new Superman, David Corenswet, has summer blockbuster possibilities. Despicable Me 4, serial killer drama Longlegs with Nicolas Cage, the horror film Maxxine, and Deadpool 3 should also do well at the box-office. Sundance hit Dìdi should do well with the critics.
Thomas La Tourrette’s Thoughts
May Retrospective
May was not a good month for possible Oscar nominees.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes could pull off a makeup Oscar nomination, but that is about all it could do.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga will likely score nominations for visual effects, and probably for cinematography, film editing, makeup, sound, and production design. It is not likely to score the picture and director nominations that its immediate predecessor did. I am not sure that it will win any of those.
July Forecast
Despicable Me 4 has an outside chance at the animated feature category, but the Academy has not been very favorable towards this series.
The Nature of Love sounds like the type of French film that could grab a nomination for screenplay or International Feature if France submits it.
Fly Me to the Moon has an interesting premise about faking the moon landing, but I do not know enough about it yet to know if it could be an Oscar possibility.
Sing Sing looks like it could bring Colman Domingo a second Oscar nomination, and it possibly could garner more for picture, director, and adapted screenplay.
Twisters should get a nomination for visual effects and perhaps sound like the original did.
War movies often do well at the Oscars, so Before Dawn could be a contender, though early reviews do not make that sound too probable.
The early reviews of Crossing are good so it might pull off a nom for screenplay. International film is less likely as it does not seem like the type of film that Georgia would submit.
Deadpool & Wolverine seems unlikely to score any nominations, but it is a film that a lot of people are looking forward to, so one never knows.
