Joey Magidson
For much of the season, it felt as though predictions only needed to be updated in dribs and drabs. Well, that’s about to change. Not only do we have notable precursors coming today and this weekend, we also had in the last few days a real curveball thrown in the whole Emilia Pérez situation. So, there’s really no excuse not to have new Academy Award predictions ready. They’ll need to be updated next week, but for the moment, I’ve taken a new look at who and what the Oscars might honor.
Tonight, the Critics Choice Awards are being handed out. This weekend also contains the Annie Awards, as well as the big dogs in the Directors Guild and especially the Producers Guild. Look to DGA and in particular, PGA, to be factors in the Oscar end game. Well, give or take how they handle Emilia Pérez. More below.
I wrote earlier on in the week here about how the Karla Sofía Gascón scandal could potentially hurt Emilia Pérez in a big way. So, I don’t need to really rehash that. What I do want to look at is how the fallout from that whole situation could reverberate throughout the Academy Awards. For example, will voters penalize Zoe Saldaña in Best Supporting Actress? She’s been a slam dunk winner up until this, but now there might be a race brewing. Gascón torpedoed her own chances in Best Actress, without question, but it remains to be seen if she’ll take her co-star down with her or not. Best Original Score and Best Original Song seem like firewalls, where the film should still emerge victorious, but watch out for an upset in Best International Feature. Again, it has felt like the movie to beat, but now, with voters potentially reconsidering their support, I’m Still Here is right there, also a Best Picture nominee, and a Best Actress nominee as well for Fernanda Torres. Watch out for that flick to siphon a number of votes if things don’t change in a big way.
The big scenario to look at is in Best Picture. Prior to the past week’s scandal, Emilia Pérez seemed like easily one of the top three contenders for Picture, at worst. Now? If it’s in the top six, it’s lucky, but winning feels out of the question. So, this is a major opening for the probable top five in Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, and Wicked. They’re all looking for some Guild love, which could give them the momentum they need. They all have pluses and minuses in their favor/against them, so Picture has just become even more wide open than it was previously, due to the Phase Two chaos that’s now brewing.
One potential contender that could really benefit, and potentially was already really on the upswing is A Complete Unknown. The Bob Dylan biopic is a film that probably does very well on a preferential ballot. Up until now, I’d been trying to see where it could squeeze a win out of its nominations. Now, if Emilia Pérez is giving it a big boost in Best Picture, it will need at least one other one. That’s where we might see Timothée Chalamet move ahead of Adrien Brody in Best Actor, or Jay Cocks and James Mangold take the lead in Best Adapted Screenplay, where up until now Conclave seemed like the one to beat. You’ll have to check my updated predictions today to see if I went that far, but it’s an evolving situation, especially now that one of the frontrunners in Picture seems to be likely out of the running.
This is where Phase Two really starts to come into focus. DGA may end up being more or less what we’ve long suspected, but PGA is a wide open race now. Post Producers Guild, we may have a much better idea of the titles actually in the running to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Academy Award voters, if nothing else, will undoubtedly be paying attention.
Right now, Netflix is in full damage control mode, trying to save whatever wins it can for Emilia Pérez, mainly by trying to ignore Gascón completely. Just look at the FYC ad above, which pretends that the star of the flick is Saldaña. Will Academy members go for it? Saving the Supporting Actress win for her should be priority number one for Netflix. If the Screen Actors Guild still goes for her, she can probably breathe easy. If they penalize her? Well, then all bets are off.
Next up is CCA, followed this weekend by the Annie Awards, DGA, and PGA. Keep in mind that with CCA, DGA, and PGA, voting ended before Gascón knocked over the apple cart. So, there’s the possibility of what are essentially phantom wins by Emilia Pérez. It makes for an interesting weekend, where if that film wins things, you almost want to throw it out, while if it loses, depending on who/what it loses to, you might know which movie or movies are grabbing new voters from a sinking cinematic ship. It’s a situation worth paying attention to…
My prior predictions article from before the nominations (found here) is available for your perusal, of course. Now, we’ve reached the start of Phase Two and Guild prizes, things are going to be different. The upcoming precursors and Guilds are what matter, as voters will be paying attention. So, you should be too!
Folks, as always you can see my newest crack at Oscar predictions right here at Awards Radar, plus an attempt at Spirit Award predictions, as well as a final set of DGA predictions and PGA predictions. They exist alongside SAG predictions, and WGA ones, too. Strap in for some big winners this weekend, which could tell us a lot…
Stay tuned for an update to these Academy Award predictions very soon!
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