James Mangold directs this film about, well, Ford V Ferrari, based on a true story. Big stars, big studio, November 15 release date, putting it smack in the middle of Oscar heat. Here is the trailer.
Based on the remarkable true story of the visionary American car designer Carroll Shelby (Damon) and the fearless British-born driver Ken Miles (Bale), who together battled corporate interference, the laws of physics, and their own personal demons to build a revolutionary race car for Ford Motor Company and take on the dominating race cars of Enzo Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in 1966.
I was distracted with Tracy Letts looking so much like Christian Bale in Vice. Spooky.
So “Tucker” + “Rush”
Not sold. Also Bale, seems to be – again – baiting for some Oscar gold with YET another transformation and accent. He’s excellent and I love him, but he’s slowly becoming a caricature
Now seriously… from what we’ve seen this year, objectively speaking…
“Avengers Endgame” is likely to earn a PGA nom, do well with guilds, has money and will to be betting for Oscars, so it’s a certified contender.
“Us” is a bit more unclear case and depends on how well the year is going to be on its “area” (genre). It just needs a calculated campaigning to earn some Globes / SAG, maybe WGA noms. It did extremely well at the b.o., so they do have the money for campaigning. Possible contender.
“Once upon a time in the Hollywood” did waves in Cannes and has a good release date… still, it didn’t win anything, Tarantino did embarrased himself at the Awards ceremony and needs not only that to be forgotten, but also that the movie is a success at the b.o. to finance the campaigning. Also easy backlash and hate-campaign against the film if seen as a contender. Big question mark here.
“Pain and Glory” did earn one of the key awards in Cannes to aspire for a possible Best Picture nomination… it won for acting, for Banderas, who inmediately started builiding his Oscar campaign (wisely so). Given that the film is strong in writting and directing and technicals, securing a lead actor nom in a foreign language film makes it a likely contender, pending only on the overall reception when released in the USA.
Aside from that, maybe “Parasite” could be an awards contender, but I don’t consider this one having the required elements to surpass “Pain and Glory” (a film about a filmmaker, clearly speaking to the soul of the AMPAS members) as a BP contender.
With almost the first half of the year done, those are the 4 films I can see having “buzz” by the end of the year. Let’s see what June brings us, but I think September will be the key month
Avengers is not a contender. Please stop with this nonsense.
OK, let me recap this, maybe you’ll get it. Guess what these films have in common…
Gone with the Wind
The Sound of Music
The Godfather
Jaws
Star Wars: A New Hope
E.T. The Extraterrestrial
Titanic
Avatar
… all of them became the highest grossing film of all time and ALSO were nominated for Best Picture (4 of them, won it).
You’re welcome. Next weekend, Avengers: Endgame is likely to surpass Avatar as highest grossing film of all times. And Marvel and Disney have already expressed interest in Oscar. They just won 3 for Black Panther and got their first nomination for Best Picture. Even more, Spider-man just won Animated Feature… PGA nom for Avengers: Endgame is a non-brainer. You don’t need to like it, but it is insane to not see that Avengers: Endgame has the potential for a Best Picture nomination.
A few counterarguments:
1) As a lot of movie writers seem to focus on US box office, thus Avengers: Endgame becoming the highest-grossing film of all time is probably around the level of importance that Star Wars: The Force Awakens becoming the highest-grossing film in the US, and I think that’s the best case scenario. And that film didn’t get a best picture nomination
2) This is all relative. Looking at at least Avatar and Titanic, the films were not only the only films to cross $1 billion worldwide that year (which seems to be the measure of success still these days), Avatar made about 3 times as much money as the second highest-grossing film of the year and Titanic about 3,5 times. Instead for Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel has already also made more than $1 billion this year, and at the very least Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will most likely make that much money, and is likely make even more than Captain Marvel. Thus if Avengers: Endgame would make about $2,8 billion eventually, it might eventually not even quite make twice as much money as the second-highest grossing film of the year. That lessens its value as the definitive box office event.
3) Almost all of these other films you mention were expected to fail:
Gone with the Wind: somewhat new producer working on an epic adaptation
The Godfather: mostly unknown ensemble with a director no one has heard of, Brando, a source material considered to be really trashy
Jaws: wild new release model
Star Wars: weird space opera that was originally supposedly a terrible mess on the page
Titanic and Avatar: does anyone care, unknown cast, really big and difficult productions
Instead Avengers: Endgame was never expected to fail, it was never the underdog who succeeded against all odds, instead it’s supposedly below expectations as far as its box office total goes. That is a completely different narrative.
4) If so many movies make an obscene amount of money, and really none of them seem to get nominated for the Oscars, is “highest-grossing film of all time” going to impress them either. Your newest example is from 10 years ago, when the relationship between the Oscars and the box office was more friendly than it is these days.
5) The awards conversation moves much faster these days than it used to so will “highest-grossing film of all time” be something that people will remember in 7 months? Or will the discussion have moved to something else already, especially if the people who can make a movie a best picture contender (pundits and critics) aren’t going to champion the film, which seems to be the case
6) The critics are clearly not as passionate about Avengers: Endgame as about those other films: Avengers: Endgame has 5/57 scores of a 100 on Metacritic whereas for for example Avatar that ratio was 12/35 and for Titanic 10/35. That indicates a lack of passion
And Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is not an MCU movie and thus is not in my opinion a showcase of possible support for Avengers: Endgame
Thank you
my point being quite obvious… writting off A:E of the running for a BP nomination when there’re plenty of antecedents, interest in the studio, clear frontrunner status for at least nomination in one of the key precursors (PGA, maybe SAG Ensemble, too), and a shitload of money to earn it… well, I can add another case: Return of the King, and yes, I am aware that both previous installments got BP nominations… so Black Panther had, too. It still a loooong way to go, but so far, I have it in my top 5 candidates for a BP nomination, and yes, over Once upon a time in Hollywood. I still consider “The Irishman” as maybe the one to beat (Martin Scorsese with Netflix giving him total control? Keytel, de Niro, Pesci, Paquin, Pacino? real life story? After “Roma” breaking the Netflix taboo… I think it might be the one to beat, year in advance… in a few weeks we’ll find out).
But the arguments you made in your previous comment are not necessarily applicable to this situation. Also, I wouldn’t describe it as a frontrunner for a PGA nomination. Of course other big films and superhero films have gotten PGA nominations based on their box office but those films are often the ones that seem to barely get nominated and then don’t translate onto the Oscars. And SAG hasn’t shown really any love for the MCU other than having the series nominated for a few stunt ensemble awards and an ensemble nomination for Black Panther (I don’t think Black Panther’s win for ensemble is important in this case since a striking amount of people vote for the winners whereas just a few thousand vote for the nominations and thus the ensemble win for Black Panther doesn’t mean that the nomination committee is necessarily going to love MCU stuff every year). What real proof is there that the nominating committee is going to vote for Avengers: Endgame.
And the same thing applies to Lord of the Rings as to the other examples you mentioned, its status as a cultural phenomenon and the film experience of the year was not something you could already question in early June, like is the case with Avengers: Endgame. And Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was the end of a saga, the end of a story, and as much as Avengers: Endgame is “the end of an era in the Marvel Cinematic Universe”, there is still another Marvel movie coming out just three months after that film and thus to a lot of voters it might not feel like the time to award Marvel, simply because that is just one in a line of movies that will continue for years to come. And then there probably are a lot of voters who feel that Black Panther getting a best picture nomination and winning several Oscars last year was enough and that they don’t have to vote for another Marvel movie this soon.
I’m not saying that Avengers: Endgame can’t get a best picture nomination, to me the theory you’re presenting for why Avengers: Endgame will get a best picture nomination just doesn’t seem the traditional path you’re presenting it as being.
Have you thought for a second, the names submitted for SAG Ensemble consideration?
Let me ask this: how many individual SAG film nominations do Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Paul Rudd, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Karen Gillan, Zoe Saldana, Evangeline Lilly, Tessa Thompson, Rene Russo, Elisabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, Danai Gurira, Benedict Wong, Dave Bautista and Letitia Wright have altogether (I’d imagine they could at least be eligible)? The answer is none. Of course there are some people who could be eligible that have gotten nominations (Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brie Larson and Tilda Swinton) but you’re talking about the wide breath of actors this film will have eligible as its strongest help in the ensemble category but you eventually have 6 previous nominees in a cast of probably about 20 actors for the ensemble nomination. I would not call that the most impressive thing.
Also, none of these actors have ever recieved notable consideration for their performances in the Marvel movies. Why didn’t Hiddleston get supporting actor consideration, why didn’t Downey Jr. get actor nominations for Iron Man, why did Michael B. Jordan remain a thing that only a few critics organizations were interested in? Perhaps that is because people don’t think of these as performances as much as characters and thus the idea of “Well, we’re going to nominate Chris Hemsworth and Tom Holland” isn’t necessarily going to be that exciting to people, even if they love Thor and Spider-Man in these movies. This has so much to do with the rise of franchise culture as a replacement for the star system so I don’t think it’s reasonable to get deep into a complicated cultural shift (about which my opinions would be long and boring to explain) but it has clearly lead to a situation where the lead actors of these movies seem to be often met with reactions that think of the actor as just someone who stands there so that the character can move and be visible instead of as actual performances. Thus I don’t think that the list of names submitted will necessarily impress people especially as there has in no way been any strong sign of support from any individual acting nomination. People aren’t passionate about Robert Downey Jr. getting an actor nomination, and the same applies to Chris Evans and everyone else. Every single SAG ensemble nominee since 2008 has had at least one performance that felt like it was the performance to nominate from that film, perhaps this performance wasn’t nominated in a lot of places but there was always someone who you could point to and say: “This performance is leading this film towards an ensemble nomination” or “This is the performance that people are thinking about when they think about the acting in this film and the ensemble that they might want to nominate”. Avengers: Endgame doesn’t seem to really have one
we went through a similar situation at the Spanish Goyas some years ago… a bad received movie – b.o. and critically, “Tiovivo 1960” I think it was called, which is obviously NOT the case of “Endgame” – got a Best Picture nomination at the Goyas, and it was always suspected that the dozens and dozens of important names in the cast played the factor in the promotion of the film’s chances. Same here, the promotion for awards race would involve – probably by contract, remember – most of those names, so the SAG Ensemble nom is likely, as the chance to reward so many stars – many, A-Listers now – at once. I always thought that having last year, names like Angela Bassett and Forest Whittaker in the shortlist of “Black Panther” played a bigger factor for the SAG nom and win, than the film itself (which mostly deserved a “Stunt Ensemble” nomination, rather than the “Ensemble Cast”. The only danger I see for the nom at the SAG is the sense of “we just did one of those, including a couple of the same names”… but considering the money behind, and the interest already expressed in Award campaigning, I wouldn’t be betting against. I’m conscious how difficult it would be for A:E in the end, to earn that SAG nom, and the BP nom, but with what we have so far to judge, it has done every single task of the homework to be a competitor, and excelled in a couple of factors. Again, the stats of “breaking b.o. record” – internationally since the 70s – equals to Best Picture nomination, is helping “A:E” chances… let’s remind that “The Force Awakens” broke the US record but didn’t surpass “Avatar” in international b.o.
Bale is a Brit so the “accent” is not exactly a stretch. 🙂
There needs to be a 10-year moratorium on using “Gimme Shelter” in movie trailers.
Zzzzz car movies and Oscars don’t tend to pan out,
Ugh how I wish Michael Mann had gotten to do this instead.
SAME! I need a great Michael Mann movie soon. I will say this looks pretty good to me.
This looks good, and it could very well be Mangolds time to shine.
Though, Rush was very good and failed to make a mark, hopefully this won’t suffer from a similar disinterest from the public.
I, too, like “Rush”, imo one of Ron Howard’s best. It would be terrific if, with this one, Mangold matches or exceeds it.
Part of me wonders if Rush’s failure to track even with awards was Ron Howard fatigue. Too bad, that was as good a film as he ever made.
Me likey. Could see Pic, 2-3 acting noms, Editing, maybe Director/Writing if this hits.