Best Picture: Will Ben Affleck’s Live by Night Shake up the Best Picture Race

Ben Affleck’s Live by Night now has a wide release date of January 13, 2017, with a “Limited Release” premiere indicated for December. We had previously thought it was slated for release in October of 2017. Now that it’s got a street date of January, many are speculating that it will, indeed, be given a qualifying awards run even though its late completion means it bypassed the major film festivals like Telluride and Toronto, en route. Clint Eastwood’s Sully had been presumed to be WB’s top contender this year

Kris Tapley at In Contention has gone ahead and put Live By Night in the Best Picture category for his first predictions of the year over at Variety. He has done, I think, a pretty good job representing each studio with a contender up for Best Picture:

When you look at the list, imagine nearly 7,000 Academy voters and what they will pick as their top five, not top ten. We know from recent history that this method tends to knock out downers. It usually knocks out through-a-glass-darkly films like Nightcrawler, Fox Catcher, Gone Girl, Inside Llewyn Davis. Most voters like movies with happy endings, uplifting stories or grand spectacle. Remember, the key is top five.

The Actors Branch has close to double the number of members of any other branch. In a major effort to diversify, many new actors of color were invited to join the Academy last year. We don’t know how that will impact the race but we do know that actors have to dig a movie, and if actors don’t dig it, it will have a harder time getting in. That tends to mean the more you have to think about it, the harder it is to get any kind of recognition.

Of Kris’ list, the films that have been seen:

Florence Foster Jenkins
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

These five films have a much better chance than others that haven’t been seen:
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Fences
Hidden Figures
Live by Night
Silence

I am always interested to observe which films we predict in September that we’ve seen will prevail vs. which films get in that we haven’t seen.  I went over to Michael Patterson’s site where he’s put together a list of Best Picture frontrunners from last year, based on input from Kris and Anne Thompson and various other Oscar pundits.  It’s dated September 28, 2015 — so bear in mind that’s a bit later in the year than where we are now. Here’s what we had 12 months ago:

1) Spotlight
2) The Revenant
3) Steve Jobs
4) The Danish Girl
5) Bridge of Spies
6) Carol
7) Brooklyn
8) Joy
9) The Hateful Eight
10) Room
11) The Martian
12) Inside Out

Seen by then:
Spotlight
Steve Jobs
The Danish Girl
Bridge of Spies
Carol
Brooklyn
Room
The Martian
Inside Out

Not seen:
Joy
The Hateful Eight
The Revenant

Okay, so what went wrong with Carol and Steve Jobs? And how might that help us predict what might happen this year? Well first, let’s look at our Best Picture nominees:

Spotlight – Good guys hunting down bad guys. Happy or at least satisfying ending.
The Martian – Just the greatest thing ever. Happy ending.
Room – Harrowing, moving, brilliant, happy ending.
Bridge of Spies – A hero, Spielberg, classic, great Tom Hanks performance.  Happy ending mostly.
The Revenant – An amazing cinematic achievement that would have won Best Picture if there was no preferential ballot.  Strange ending, not happy.
Brooklyn – Love story with a really happy ending.
Mad Max – Took the critics by storm early on, happy ending.
The Big Short – Dark, twisted, hilarious – not happy ending.

If we look back on the year before that we see:

Birdman – Funny, sort of feelgood, sort of sad but happy enough.
American Sniper – Massive hit, satisfying ending, not really so happy.
Boyhood – Happy ending
The Imitation Game – Happy ending
The Grand Budapest Hotel – Happy ending
Selma – Happy ending
The Theory of Everything – Happy ending
Whiplash – Happy ending.

And the year before:

12 Years a Slave – As happy an ending as could be hoped, given the tragic situation
The Wolf of Wall Street – Dark ending
American Hustle – What the hell was that ending – happy I guess.
Nebraska – Happy ending
Captain Phillips – Happy ending (Tom Hanks)
Philomena – Happy ending
Dallas Buyers Club – Happyish ending
Gravity – Happy ending
Her – Happyish ending

2012
Argo – Happy ending
Amour – Tragic ending
Beasts of the Southern Wild – Happy ending
Django Unchained – Happyish/satisfying ending
Les Miserables – Happyish
Life of Pi – Very happy
Lincoln – Happyish/bittersweet
Silver Linings Playbook – Happily Ever After
Zero Dark Thirty – Satisfying but…not exactly happy

2011
The Artist – Happy
The Tree of Life – Happyish
The Descendants – Happy
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close – Happy
The Help – Happy
Hugo – Happy
Midnight in Paris – Happy
Moneyball – Happy
War Horse – Happy

The only things I can think of that went wrong with Carol and Steve Jobs were that the characters in them weren’t likable enough. The same went for Foxcatcher and Nightcrawler and Inside Llewyn Davis. If your characters are likable, the film can overcome a less than happy ending, as with The Big Short and Wolf of Wall Street. Obviously, it’s always better to have both likable characters and a happy ending if you want to win. The one thing it doesn’t look like helps you at all is if the characters themselves are not all that likable, for whatever reason, to a large consensus of voters.

The feelgood so far this year that are “in the conversation” are:
La La Land (melancholy, sort of a bittersweet ending but leaves you soaring anyway)
Sully (a movie about a hero with Tom Hanks starring)
Lion (Dev Patel seeks out his family, major tearjerker)
Arrival (incredibly moving for those who can follow it)
Florence Foster Jenkins (classically uplifting and sweet and funny)
Loving (they change the world and live happily ever after)

Unseen, happy, we presume:
Hidden Figures

In the middle:
Manchester by the Sea (tough and hard but ultimately there is salvation)
Hell or High Water (great western/happyish ending)

Unseen in the middle:
Silence (will it be a story of redemption or …?)
Fences (complicated story of race and relationships.)

The dark movies so far this year that could have a harder time getting in:
Snowden
Birth of a Nation
Jackie

Unseen:
Live by Night, film noir.

Obviously, the one thing we know for sure is that we have no idea how things will go. Who would have predicted Steve Jobs would do badly at the box office and thus see its chances falter? If it had more likable characters would it have done better? Why didn’t people like the characters in Carol? We just have no way of knowing what direction the wind will blow this race. We have our best guesses.

I think Kris is underestimating both Sully and Loving, but I can’t argue with him since those movies will get moved up if the other movies coming up are tossed.

I know that Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival is a long shot, but it is one of those movies — and you all know this about me — I can’t give up on even if I know it’s probably not going anywhere with the Academy.

Here is how the films are shaping up, reviews wise — ordering them from highest RT score for now — we know that these will shift as more people see the films:

Arrival (100% Rotten Tomatoes so far, with 36 reviews/no negative reviews)
Hell or High Water (98% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 168 reviews/3 negative) — $22 million
Manchester by the Sea (97% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 30 reviews/1 negative review)
Moonlight (97% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 29 reviews/1 negative)
La La Land (96% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 45 reviews, 2 negative)
Jackie (95% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 20 reviews/1 negative)
Loving (93% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 42 reviews, 3 negative)
Hacksaw Ridge (93% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 15 reviews, 1 negative)
Florence Foster Jenkins (87% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 171 reviews/22 negative) — $26 million
Sully (82% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 197 reviews, 35 negative) — $70 million
Queen of Katwe (72% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 18 reviews/5 negative)
Lion (64% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 14 reviews, 5 negative)

Unseen:
Silence
Hidden Figures
Live by Night
Gold
20th Century Women
Passengers
Fences
The Founder
Miss Sloane
Rules Don’t Apply
Allied
Hacksaw Ridge
The Girl on the Train
The Accountant

It seems to me like there are still a great many films left to see before we have any idea how this year is going to go. There seems to be a very number of late breakers that could dramatically shift the race. Going back to 2011, when the Academy switched their ballots from ten (in 2009 and 2010) back down to five, two or three at the most of the late-breaking movies make it in. In our world of Oscar pundits we tend to follow the strategist’s lead. If we know a certain studio or strategist is behind a certain movie we tend to give it more consideration because we know it will be pushed harder and pushed skillfully. It really does make all of the difference, knowing that. But you can’t know until the movie has been seen how it will land with audiences. Big stars help, big directors help.

The themes to watch for this year will be:

OscarsSoWhite – Which movies help bail out the Academy from its reputation of only nominating films with white protagonists.
Controversies – Which films have crippling controversies attached and which don’t.
Women writers or directors or subject matter, always underrepresented.

My predictions right now would look something like this:

Feel pretty confident about (seen):
La La Land
Loving
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Fences
Manchester by the Sea
Sully
Moonlight
Lion
Hell or High Water
Jackie

But I do not feel comfortable with this list at all, not until every film has been seen.