Predictions Friday: The Great Date Change-Up

The Producers, Writers, and Directors Guilds (OH MY!) are all announcing their nominees on January 27, two Thursdays from now. That is also the day Oscar voters get ballots in hand. It will make a huge difference that the Big Guild Dump will be happening at the same time. Oscar voters will bounce off whatever results come from that.

As if things couldn’t get any crazier, the two top contenders for the screenplay prizes, Belfast and The Power of the Dog, are not eligible for the Writers Guild award, according to Next Best Picture.

These are the excluded titles:

ORIGINAL
A Hero
Annette
Belfast
Mass
Parallel Mothers
Pig
The Worst Person In The World
Titane

ADAPTED
Benedetta
Cyrano
Drive My Car
Passing
The Lost Daughter
The Power of the Dog
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Zola

So for instance, if The Power of the Dog is the Oscar front-runner for adapted and its challenger is The Lost Daughter, neither of these titles will be at the WGA. Ditto Passing. So that leaves open a whole different potential list for WGA — not that it will make much of a difference, considering the time frame between the WGA noms and Oscar ballots. There probably isn’t going to be enough time to rally a consensus behind films that may or may not make the cut, like The Last Duel, for instance. But it does mean borderline films like Nightmare Alley and The Tragedy of Macbeth could get in. Whether or that bumps them to Oscar is a whole different thing. We just can’t know.

For the WGA, I think they might go with some surprises none of us is expecting. For original, it’s slightly easier, probably something like:

Licorice Pizza
Being the Ricardos
King Richard
Don’t Look Up
C’mon, C’mon

Maybe? Who knows what else could show up there.

Then, for adapted, something like:

West Side Story
CODA
Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Last Duel
The Tragedy of Macbeth

If anything else shows up there, like Cyrano, then that shows stronger support for a movie that has not shown up many other places.

The DGA and the PGA are still our best guides for Best Picture. The PGA is going to be especially useful since they have roughly the same number of members as the Academy and they choose ten nominees. That means the PGA will come closer to predicting the Best Picture Ten.

The main difference between the PGA and the Academy is that the Academy is ruled by actors. That’s why, much of the time, a genre movie like Skyfall can land at the PGA but not the Oscars. For the Academy’s sake, however, I hope they can expand their comfort zone some and think about the public at large.

I did a Zoom chat with an AP English class in Connecticut, which was a lot of fun and very illuminating, I thought. The teacher asked the class if there was any movie that they could name that was like Jaws was for me as a kid. Almost all of them, with a few exceptions, named movies that are part of large franchises. Their entire lives have been shaped by them and they mean a lot more to them than the “Oscar movies” ever will. Thus, for the Academy to keep omitting them seems a little crazy, and will only seem crazier as time wears on.

According to Steve Pond, Academy voters now have access to the Amazing Spidey:

With two weeks to go until the start of Oscar nomination voting, Academy members who don’t want to leave the house can finally watch 2021’s biggest blockbuster. “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the only unquestionable box-office phenomenon of this past pandemic year, will be available in the members-only Academy Screening Room on Friday morning, allowing voters to take a look at the film that hopes to follow “Black Panther” from the pages of Marvel Comics to the lineup of Best Picture nominees.

For PGA, I would imagine it would go something like this:

Strongest contenders:
Belfast
The Power of the Dog
King Richard
West Side Story
Dune
Don’t Look Up
CODA
Licorice Pizza

That leaves us with just two slots for the following movies:

House of Gucci
Being the Ricardos
Nightmare Alley
Cyrano
Spider-Man: No Way Home

I hope they nominate Spider-Man for the sake of awards overall. I am not convinced they will. They pick what they like.

When it comes to the DGA, you really do get close to what would be the Best Picture Five if the Oscars still only had five Best Picture nominees. They are the most popular movies overall because their membership is the biggest of the big guilds. The SAG is bigger but their nominating committee is only 2,000. The DGA is around 16,000, so their choices tend to be more populist. And they like well-known, big-name directors.

But we’re all kind of assuming it will go:

Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
Steven Spielberg, West Side Story
Denis Villeneuve, Dune
Adam McKay, Don’t Look Up or Reinaldo Marcus Green, King Richard or Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza, or Guillermo Del Toro, Nightmare Alley, or Sian Heder, CODA

Either way, by the end of this month, when Oscar voting starts, we’ll have a much clearer idea of how it’s going.

Here are the trouble spots.

Best Actress

It looked like Kristen Stewart had it in the bag until she missed the win at the Globes, then missed the nomination at the SAG. Waiting in the wings to take a slot would be Jennifer Hudson for Respect, who should have been one of the locked contenders early on but for whatever reason awards season consensus dropped the ball on that. But there is also Penelope Cruz for Parallel Mothers and the Golden Globe winner in Musical/Comedy, Rachel Zegler.

If we see our consensus as:

Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
Lady Gaga, House of Gucci
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Then the fifth slot is open.  All of these made the long list at BAFTA:

Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Lady Gaga, House of Gucci
Alana Haim, Licorice Pizza
Jennifer Hudson, Respect
Emilia Jones, CODA
Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
Jennifer Lawrence, Don’t Look Up
Frances McDormand, The Tragedy of Macbeth
Renate Reinsve, The Worst Person in the World
Claire Rushbrook, Ali & Ava
Joanna Scanlan, After Love
Kristen Stewart, Spencer
Tessa Thompson, Passing
Rachel Zegler, West Side Story

That doesn’t exactly narrow it down. With no Penelope Cruz there, I’m going to have to say that the last slot will be down to:

Stewart
Hudson
Zegler

Because otherwise, someone in that four is going to get bumped:

Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
Lady Gaga, House of Gucci
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Someone who can get in on the strength of her movie is Rachel Zegler. But if it’s about the strength of the performances, then it’s probably Stewart or Hudson. Tough call, man, tough call. Oh, one more thing to note on Best Actress: the BAFTA really loved The Tragedy of Macbeth. I half wonder if this is where Frances McDormand makes an appearance.

Moving onto Best Actor, we also have a fifth slot situation:

Will Smith, King Richard
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth
Andrew Garfield, tick tick BOOM!

And our fifth slot, which appears to be between Javier Bardem for Being the Ricardos, the SAG choice, or Peter Dinklage for Cyrano, the Globes choice. Does it come down to the movie that’s most popular? And is there anyone else who could find their way in? My guess would be, possibly, Leonardo DiCaprio in Don’t Look Up, or Mahershala Ali for Swan Song, who landed on the Globes list and the BAFTA long list.

Let’s move on to predictions.

Best Picture
1. Belfast
2. The Power of the Dog
3. West Side Story
4. King Richard
5. Dune
6. Licorice Pizza
7. CODA
8. Don’t Look Up
9. House of Gucci
10. Spider-Man: No Way Home

Alts: Nightmare Alley and Being the Ricardos

Best Director
1. Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
2. Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
3. Steven Spielberg, West Side Story
4. Denis Villeneuve, Dune
5. Adam McKay, Don’t Look Up
Alts: Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza; Guillermo del Toro, Nightmare Alley

Best Actress
Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Lady Gaga, House of Gucci
Jennifer Hudson, Respect
Kristen Stewart, Spencer
Alts: Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye; Rachel Zegler, West Side Story

Best Actor
Will Smith, King Richard
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth
Andrew Garfield, tick, tick… Boom
Peter Dinklage, Cyrano
Alts: Leonardo DiCaprio, Don’t Look Up; Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos

Supporting Actress
Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Caitriona Balfe, Belfast
Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
Marlee Matlin, CODA
Alts: Rita Moreno, West Side Story; Nina Arianda, Being the Ricardos; Ann Dowd, Mass; Haley Bennett, Cyrano; Martha Plimpton, Mass

Supporting Actor
Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog
Troy Kotsur, CODA
Ciaran Hinds, Belfast
J.K. Simmons, Being the Ricardos
Bradley Cooper, Licorice Pizza
Alts: Mark Rylance, Don’t Look Up, Mike Faist, West Side Story; Ben Affleck, The Tender Bar; Jonah Hill, Don’t Look Up; Jared Leto, House of Gucci

Adapted Screenplay
The Power of the Dog
The Lost Daughter
West Side Story
CODA
Dune
Alts: Nightmare Alley, The Last Duel

Original Screenplay
Belfast
Don’t Look Up
Licorice Pizza
King Richard
Being the Ricardos
Alts: Parallel Mothers, C’mon C’mon

Cinematography
The Power of the Dog
Belfast
West Side Story
The Tragedy of Macbeth
Dune
Alt: Nightmare Alley

Costumes
Cruella
House of Gucci
Nightmare Alley
West Side Story
The French Dispatch
Alts: The Last Duel, The Power of the Dog

Editing
Dune
Belfast
Don’t Look Up
West Side Story
The Power of the Dog

Production Design
Dune
Nightmare Alley
West Side Story
Licorice Pizza
The French Dispatch

Sound
Spider-Man: No Way Home
West Side Story
Dune
No Time to Die
tick, tick… Boom!

Visual Effects
Spider-Man: No Way Home
No Time to Die
Dune
The Eternals
Shang-Chi

Makeup and Hairstyling
Cruella
Dune
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Nightmare Alley
West Side Story

Original Score
The Power of the Dog
Don’t Look Up
Encanto
Dune
King Richard

Original Song
Be Alive from “King Richard”
No Time To Die from “No Time to Die”
Down To Joy from Belfast
Just Look Up from Don’t Look Up
Here I Am (Singing My Way Home) from Respect

Animated Feature
Encanto
Mitchells vs. the Machines
Luca
Flee
Spirit Untamed

International Feature
Japan, Drive My Car
Denmark, Flee
Iran, A Hero
Italy, The Hand of God
Norway, The Worst Person in the World
Alts: Finland, Compartment No. 6

Documentary Feature
The Rescue
Summer of Soul
Flee
Julia
Procession

And that, as they say, is that.