EW's Anthony Breznican, one of the more well-connected, knowledgeable and level-headed of the usually highly excitable group of Oscarologists has launched a new section that analyzes the leading contenders.
Oscar Guide: EW's Prize Fighter on the four-way battle for Best Picture
It’s going to be a brutal battle to the finish this Oscar season.
Right now, at least four films have an even chance of claiming the Academy Award for best picture — Ben Affleck’s Argo, Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook — with a handful of challengers such as Les Miserables, Zero Dark Thirty, and Django Unchained coming soon.
Today we’re launching EW.com’s Prize Fighter, a new fixture that aims to be the movie-lover’s front-row ticket to the showdown. Since this is the inaugural post, let’s do a little introduction and then dive into the state-of-the Best Picture race so far.
Prize Fighter’s mission statement is simple: We’re still going to track who’s up and who’s down in the Oscar race, but the goal is to use Hollywood’s award season as a way to explore why these films are the best of 2012, and tell the stories of their storytellers.
To me, the question “What’s going to win Best Picture?” is more interesting than the eventual answer. Truth be told, I’ve never cared very much about who goes home with a trophy, but I love the Oscars and award season because it’s a fiesty winter-long conversation about the films that get under our skin, into our heads, and make our hearts pump a little faster.
A lot of writers at EW will be contributing to Prize Fighter (and we’re also going to highlight some of the best award-season reporting done by outsiders), but as the chief Oscar correspondent you’ll be hearing from me the most. That’s me, smile-squinting at you from the banner above. (Hi, Grandma!)
After the impeccable Dave Karger departed EW for Fandango, I’ve taken over the Oscar beat. Dave leaves big shoes to fill, and all I can do is try not to scuff them up. I’ve been covering movies for 12 years, and my tastes are as broad as they come: Sundance is my favorite movie marathon of the year, and my personal Top 10 is more likely to follow the Independent Spirit Awards than the Oscars, since I’ve got a thing for underdogs. But I’ve also got a serious cinematic sweet-tooth for big, crazy blockbusters. I can’t resist Marvel superheroes, Star Wars, James Bond movies, and anything with giant, killer robots or aliens. I don’t know if Transformers of the Southern Wild would be a good film, but I would pay money to find out.
My goal with EW’s Prize Fighter is not just to predict winners, though I am out there talking to voters at every opportunity, trying to get an accurate read on where the race stands. I’m eager to expand the awards season conversation at this point to include smaller movies that you should put on your must-see list before making your best-of list.
I also intend to look beyond just the celebrity categories to highlight the work of brilliant “below-the-line” artists – the costume designers, cinematographers, editors, and visual effects and sound supervisors who work behind the camera to bring these stories to life. We’ll also be taking you behind the scenes of the Feb. 24 Academy Awards telecast, with Ted and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane hosting for the first time.
If all that interests you, please bookmark EW.com/PrizeFighter and check back with us for all our Oscar coverage.
Right now, here’s some intel on where the Best Picture race stands right now.
In past years, it seems like one movie has run away with the prize early. But this time, it’s shaping up to be a knock-down, drag-out.
I hesitate to rank the contenders from most to least likely at this point because we’re still almost a month-and-a-half away from the close of nominations on Jan. 3. Academy voters have seen a lot already and have a few heavy favorites, but some potential contenders haven’t even begun screening for them yet. (Reporters sometimes get to see rough cuts, but voters always wait for the finished product.)
Based on the voters I’ve talked to, we’re close to a four-way tie between Ben Affleck’s Iran rescue drama Argo, Ang Lee’s mystical Life of Pi, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, and David O. Russell’s manic romance Silver Linings Playbook. (See here if you want a run-down of how votes are tallied. And check out Gurus O’ Gold and Gold Derby for aggregate rankings from others.)
If voting were held today I think it would go down like this. Again, this is not my personal preference, but an estimation based on anecdotal sampling of voters. The safe thing would be to make this prediction now and stick with it for the long term, but voters seem to change their minds constantly. I think a lot could change, so I’m going to take a risk on an alternate scenario for how the final ranking could shake out. (More on that later.):
1. Argo
2. Lincoln
3. Silver Linings Playbook
4. Life of Pi
Both Argo and Silver Linings Playbook debuted in September at the Toronto International Film Festival to raves, but Argo has the advantage because it has already opened nationally to solid and enduring box office, is one of the best-reviewed wide releases of the year, and has been out long enough to build into a consensus choice. It’s a safe bet, so if you ask voters to rank their favorites of the year, it’s usually the first one they say. “Solid” is the word I hear again and again from admiring Argo voters.
The downside to being the early frontrunner is having to maintain that momentum.
Argo is a sure-fire nominee, but Warner Bros. has to walk the line between maintaining its support and not wearing out its welcome. It’s easier for a film like The Artist to cling to front-runner status in a year when there isn’t a lot of major competition, but this season Argo will face an especially strong line-up of heavy-hitter challengers.
Silver Linings Playbook opens in limited release today (expanding wider on Nov. 21), and also has rave reviews on its side, but it remains unclear whether the movie will be embraced by average moviegoers. This story of bi-polar Bradley Cooper’s offbeat romance with an equally unstable Jennifer Lawrence is smaller in scale than Argo and many of its rivals, but the Oscars love to make room for intimate films among the epics.
Those who have seen Silver Linings Playbook love it with the same frantic energy the movie emanates, and that’s a good thing. Radical passion endures. I know a number of voters who are slam-their-hands-on-the-tabletop certain that this movie will not only be nominated, but win. First, it absolutely must connect with moviegoers at the box office, and that is still a question mark.
Its limited debut this weekend will undoubtedly be strong, based on the word-of-mouth already out there, but it will need a solid nationwide expansion to catch the attention of Academy voters who aren’t already sold. If it tanks, or struggles, there are just too many other crowdpleasers with equal acclaim that could roll over it.
Read the rest at EW
