The conversation about the 87th Oscars had barely died down yet when you could hear rumblings about the 88th Academy Awards. It's not just the "will they go back to five" question but the sudden jockeying for release dates for the oncoming battle. Today we've had two new November announcements (Brooklyn & The Danish Girl) to go along with the previously announced titles of potential interest.
And so far... miracle of miracles, things look pretty balanced... but will that continue?
Titles That Might be of Awards Interest In Some Way
Not a complete list of releases - links take you to articles
spring summer early birds
April 3rd WOMAN IN GOLD (Simon Curtis directing Helen Mirren) Weinstein Co
April 3rd EFFIE GRAY (Richard Laxton with Emma Thompson) Adopt Films
April 10th CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA (Olivier Assayas directing ACTRESSES)
May 1st AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (Joss Whedon) Disney/Marvel
May 1st FAR FROM MADDING CROWD (Thomas Vinterberg) Fox Searchlight
June 12th JURASSIC WORLD (Colin Trevorrow) Universal
July 1st ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL (Sundance sensation) Fox Searchlight
July 24th PAN (Joe Wright) a Peter Pan prequel of sorts Warner Bros
July 24th IRRATIONAL MAN (Woody Allen directing Joaquin Phoenix) SPC
July 31st SOUTHPAW (Antoine Fuqua directing Jake Gyllenhaal) Weinstein Co
Aug 7th RICKI & THE FLASH (Jonathan Demme directing Meryl Streep) Sony
Aug 28th CROUCHING TIGER 2 (Yuen Wo-Ping) Weinstein Co./Netflix
Fall. 'Prestige Season' whatever that means
Sept 4th JANE GOT A GUN (Gavin O'Connor directing Natalie Portman) Relativity/Weinstein Co
Sept 11th TRIPLE NINE (John Hillcoat directing lotsa names) Open Road
Sept 18th BLACK MASS / WHITEY BULGER (Scott Cooper directing Depp) Warner Bros
Sept 18th SICARIO (Denis Villeneuve directing Emily Blunt) Lionsgate
Sept 18th EVEREST (Baltasar Kormakur directing Jake Gyllenhaal) Universal
Sept 18th PAWN SACRIFICE (Edward Zwick directing Tobey Maguire) Bleecker Street
Oct 2nd THE WALK (Robert Zemeckis) same story as doc winner Man on Wire
Oct 9th STEVE JOBS (Danny Boyle directing Michael Fassbender) Universal
Oct 16th CRIMSON PEAK (Guillermo Del Toro) Universal
Oct 23rd THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES (Billy Ray) remake of foreign winner
Nov 6th SPECTRE (Sam Mendes & 007) MGM
Nov 7th BROOKLYN (John Crowley directing Saoirse Ronan) Fox Searchlight
Thanksgiving through New Years - The Glut! But so far not terribly crowded
Nov 25th THE MARTIAN (Ridley Scott directing Matt Damon) Fox
Nov 25th MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (Jeff Nichols directing Michael Shannon) Warner Bros
Nov 27th THE DANISH GIRL (Tom Hooper directing Eddie Redmayne) Focus
Dec 11th THE LADY IN THE VAN (Nicholas Hytner directing Maggie Smith) Sony
Dec 18th STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS Disney
Dec 25th JOY (David O. Russell directing JLaw) Fox
Dec 25th THE REVENANT (Alejandro González Iñárritu directing DiCaprio) Fox
Dec 31st A LITTLE CHAOS (Alan Rickman directing Kate Winslet) Focus
Of course this is but a small sampling. Many Oscar contenders don't have dates yet or will show up at the fall festivals by surprise. So our question is this: will this spread the wealth scheduling continue? Have they learned the recent lessons that summer through November can be pretty great months for gold statue seeking? [MORE...]
Hell, just THIS EXACT WEEKEND LAST YEAR The Grand Budapest Hotel and many many months later led the Oscar nominations. The last several years of Oscars have favored early headstarts for the eventual Best Picture winner...and quite a few nominees. Argo and 12 Years a Slave opened in October, and what's more their presumed strongest opponents Lincoln and Gravity opened in November and October. Boyhood went the summer route and though it eventually lost the big prize to Birdman, November, it wasn't the summer opening working against it (that was one of those 'small' films that needed to grow in stature during release ... which it did). Summer can actually be great for Oscar contenders since its perfect timing for a second wave attack with the DVD Bluray release. Summer worked for The Hurt Locker (June) which was free of head-turning stars and with a director that was acclaimed but not part of the club; it absolutely would not have won with a December release as there would have been no time for that slow burn realization that we were all looking at an arguable masterpiece.
Fact: NONE of the Best Picture winners of the this decade began their releases in December. In fact we haven't had a December opening win Best Picture since Million Dollar Baby (2004). This decade we've had one June, two Octobers, and three Novembers (the latest to-open winners: The Kings Speech and The Artist which opened on the coasts for Thanksgiving weekend).
December is still good for nominations. Not so much wins.
And yet the December glut is still a very real problem. Common wisdom has always been December due to "short attention span" but it isn't as infallible a strategy as many think and it's a downright terrible strategy for some films that need time to find their fanbase and could get easily lost in the glut. What it seems to work best for are A list projects that EVERYONE will be seeing over the holidays and possibly with family (like a new Eastwood or a holiday blockbuster with Streep) or films that are very flashy that can't risk losing any initial shine. Consider the way Chicago started losing heat to The Pianist in the final weeks though it still prevailed or the huge nomination tally of American Hustle which won nothing. December can also be a good time for films with multiple attractive elements that are just never going to be real threats as winners (Into the Woods, War Horse, True Grit, etcetera). They're fresh in the memory so they often steal coveted random craft nominations that should have gone to worthier earlier fare.
So as the studios begin announcing dates we'll see which ones are wise to how this has been playing out recently.