The Producers Guild of America announced their nominations a day earlier than scheduled giving us the general consensus list of films in competition for Best Picture. Other than Skyfall, which will very likely follow the Star Trek/Harry Potter path to the Oscars, the others seem like solid bets for nabbing slots. There isn’t one of them I couldn’t see making it through, so we could have another nine-picture year. The same can be said for Best Animated Feature, but the films listed for Best Documentary are either ineligible or likely not to be nominated at the Oscars with Searching for Sugar Man the one most likely to make it through.
The Awards
Best Picture
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Moonrise Kingdom
Silver Linings Playbook
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty
Best Animated Feature
Brave
Frankenweenie
ParaNorman
Rise of the Guardians
Wreck-It Ralph
Best Documentary
A People Uncounted
The Gatekeepers
The Island President
The Other Dream Team
Searching for Sugar Man
Producers Guild of America Data
Year Founded: 1950 Film; 1957 TV; 1962 Unified First Awards: 1989 (24)
Les Mis and Django will both be passing $100 million within a couple of weeks and Life of Pi should see a nice post-Nomination boost to get it just over the $100 million mark. And maybe Silver Linings Playbook will finally catch on? That could be mean anywhere from 4 to 6 high grossers on the list…far from being out of the mainstream, IMO.
I guess I’m just wishing the Academy was more inclined to include some of the larger box office grossing films like they did with Avatar, The Blind Side, Up, Toy Story 3 and Inception. Of course, that was back during the ten nominees slate, last year the only $100 million film was The Help (though the other $100 million grossing films weren’t exactly pedigree films).
I’m just a subscriber to the “find the good in life and praise it if you ever want the good to return” form of thinking of blockbusters. Sure, they don’t have the freedom that indie films have, but they work under tighter constraints to get some form of labor of love out there after it’s been ground down by studio dailies and test market screenings.
At this point, I could see Les Miserables failing to make the Best Picture list as the Surprise Snub of the year. If Skyfall doesn’t make it in, then Lincoln and Argo would be the only $100 million plus nominees, which would further isolate the Academy from the mainstream.
Of course, last year’s nominees showed that they are more inclined to nominate “the movies we want people to see” as opposed to “the best of the mainstream”.
As a follow-up. I just looked at the totals for Les Mis and Django and both are doing quite well. Should each continue to earn roughly $5 million a day through the weekend, that $25 million will push both above $100 million just before the Oscar nominations.
No doubt, Django and Les Miserables will break $100 million. And you’re right, if Life of Pi gets a boost (I am so hoping), then it will be about five movies with $100 million+. If Silver Linings Playbook gets some better releasing, then it could earn more, but with how poorly they’ve been at expanding it’s theatrical release (which may be so that it doesn’t fizzle out come award time), I’m not sure how much it will gross at this point. However, there’s something in me that thinks Zero Dark Thirty might connect with the middle America crowd when it gets released. Think a stronger showing than Act of Valor.
The Producers Guild of America announced their nominations a day earlier than scheduled giving us the general consensus list of films in competition for Best Picture. Other than Skyfall, which will very likely follow the Star Trek/Harry Potter path to the Oscars, the others seem like solid bets for nabbing slots. There isn’t one of them I couldn’t see making it through, so we could have another nine-picture year. The same can be said for Best Animated Feature, but the films listed for Best Documentary are either ineligible or likely not to be nominated at the Oscars with Searching for Sugar Man the one most likely to make it through.
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