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We had three films release in 2017 so far with the potential for Oscar nominations.

The Lego Batman Movie

There are currently fifteen more animated films slated for release in 2017. That doesn’t mean more won’t come along as GKids has been well known to release late for Oscar consideration. However, looking over what’s to come this year, there’s no reason to believe that The Lego Batman Movie will have relatively light competition. On the list of possible contenders are Pixar’s Cars 3, Universal’s Despicable Me 3, and Pixar’s Coco. That’s not a lot. Further, there are reasons to believe that not all of these will be contenders.

Disney/Pixar has had horrendous luck getting Oscar nominations for its sequels. Toy Story 3 is the only one of theirs to date to do so, that includes prequels/sequels to Cars, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo. That might work against Cars 3. They aren’t the only ones having problems with sequels nominated. In the category’s 15-year history, only five sequels have ever been nominated: Toy Story 3, Shrek 2, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Despicable Me 2, and Kung Fu Panda 2. Despicable Me 3 might see that as a positive sign, but recent Kung Fu Panda 3 couldn’t make the cut either.

Some might consider The Lego Batman Movie a sort-of sequel to The Lego Movie, but that film’s surprise failure to earn an Oscar nomination is both instructive and hope-inducing. On the one hand, if the prior one couldn’t get nominated, what chance does the second Lego movie have. On the other, the failure of the Academy’s animation branch to select the film might give the film’s fans enough impetus to push it harder. Either way, Coco is the only assured competition Lego Batman Movie currently has, so chances now are looking pretty good.

Get Out

There are few more stigmatized genres than horror. The Academy had a brief period where it recognized several including Psycho, The Exorcist, and The Omen among a small number of others. That recognition dried up in the early 1980s and apart from psychological thrillers masquerading as horror films (see Silence of the Lambs), they’ve been seldom seen.

That might change with the critically acclaimed Get Out, a film so well received that big news was made when notorious curmudgeon critic Armond White broke the film’s perfect 100% score at Rotten Tomatoes. That degree of acclaim is hard to ignore and further, if critics groups push the film hard at the end of the year, the Academy would need to be cautious in ignoring it.

The film isn’t likely to make many nominations, but Best Original Screenplay is the perfect place for the Academy to say “great job” without having to do much more for the film. That lack of broad potential support would likely preclude its inclusion in the Best Picture race, but who knows what its competition will ultimately be and a nomination might be in the offing.

Logan

Speaking of marginalized genres, horror has had some high profile recognition from the Academy in the past, but superhero films have struggled mightily. Other than The Dark Knight, Batman (1989), and the original Superman, the genre has managed a handful of tech nominations, but seldom more significant than that. Heath Ledger’s nomination and Oscar win for The Dark Knight remains the only above the line category a comic book film has secured recognition in.

While I doubt that will change, the only film since The Dark Knight, that has any claim to being a potential game changer is Logan. Directed by James Mangold, who helped get Angelina Jolie her Oscar for his film Girl, Interrupted, has had a decent amount of respect in the industry and with critics with films like Cop Land, Girl, Interrupted, Identity, Walk the Line, and 3:10 to Yuma.

Logan has received relatively glowing reviews (93% on Rotten Tomatoes, 77 on MetaCritic) and is certain to be a big box office performer, but the Academy doesn’t give enough credence to the genre in terms of above the line recognition and being the latest in a 17-year series of films isn’t likely to impress some of them. Still, the film should compete in some of the tech categories like Sound Mixing and Sound Editing, even if it has too few noticeable effects to compete in Visual Effects, but cases could easily be made that prior Oscar nominee (for Les Miserables Hugh Jackman in Best Actor and possibly even Patrick Stewart in Supporting Actor. Those two have to be considered longshots at this point, but no one seriously though Ian McKellen would earn a nomination for his role as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, so anything really is possible.

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