BoxOfficeFangrl

I saw Babylon in theaters and two-thirds of the audience walked out (in three different stages) before it was over. From 6 people to 2, but still, incredible to witness. Pretty sure this has been a movie before? Funny to see a local story end up on TMZ.

I don't think screentime alone determines if someone is lead or supporting, but things like POV/impact/presence/character evolution are subjective, and not everyone's definition of what makes an actor the lead or not. Back in the Golden Age, Lead vs Supporting was an issue of career status, not the role itself. Even being top-billed isn't always a definitive measure, because maybe the person with the most screentime isn't very well known. So for advertising purposes, it helps to put the established star's name/face out there instead. But sometimes it's Carey Mulligan in She Said, going Supporting Actress to try to get the nom (better luck next year, lol). Also, people's perceptions of screentime can be wildly off. From prior years I've encountered comments like, "Gaga was practically supporting in A Star Is Born!" and "Kodi Smit-McPhee was in Power of the Dog more than Cumberbatch," and that Hopkins was in Silence of the Lambs for 18 minutes. People will believe what they want, but that doesn't make it reality. Having the screentime measured out isn't a bad thing, it's just information that can be used in a number of ways. People IMO are more accepting of non-awards movies having multiple leads of the same gender, three leads, or co-leads where one star has 5-10 less minutes onscreen than the other. Like, nobody is making the case that Hobbs is lead and Shaw is supporting, but if it were an Oscar movie, someone would really try arguing that.

For real this time, or is this movie promo? Up to 68 percent with 22 reviews! The sneak previews are selling well around me and the studio hasn't skimped on the promo. Good for everyone involved if it's a hit!

Someone runs a Twitter account and website devoted to actor screentime for Oscar nominated performances and contenders throughout the year. Timing it all can show how impressions of screentime can be false, based on strength of performance, placement in the story, star power, etc. Here are the stats for EEAAO, a breakdown of both total minutes and the percentage of the movie's overall screentime: Quan's in less than 50 percent of the movie, and has way less screentime than Yeoh. OTOH, a couple of Best Actor performances last year fell in the 41-42 percent range (Denzel and Javier Bardem), but they are multi-nominated stars, former winners with big industry clout. Two of this year's Best Actor performances are still theatrical exclusives, so the stats aren't complete yet... 95th Academy Awards - 2022 Brendan Fraser (The Whale) - coming soon Bill Nighy (Living) - coming soon Paul Mescal (Aftersun) - 58:14 / 57.26% Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) - 1:09:26 / 60.96% Austin Butler (Elvis) - 1:35:34 / 60.01% I think Fraser is onscreen for a high percentage of his film, not sure about Nighy, but both are the character with the most screentime in their movie. Maybe if Ke Huy Quan had gone lead, it would’ve been a Michelle Williams situation where some groups reject the category placement, and he misses at half the precursors. As it is, he's sweeping in Supporting Actor. If you look over Oscar history, it's really unusual for the Lead Actor to have 30+ minutes less onscreen than their movie's Lead Actress. Here's the website I used: https://www.screentimecentral.com/about

Tubi is full of absurd movies like that, super low budget and often filmed in Detroit: https://www.michiganradio.org/podcast/stateside/2023-01-30/stateside-podcast

As expected, Andrea stays, the Academy will review/update their rules after the ceremony, and Frances Fisher is in big trouble... There was an email to members and this letter from the Academy's CEO: I wonder if all the actors saying the backlash to the nomination was unfair, if they will calm down now or if Riseborough will Green Book her way to a win. Get ready to see, "No one can tell me how to vote!" all over the Anonymous Oscar Ballots...

They will probably briefly mention that there were allegations without implying any guilt whatsoever. Would the Jackson estate really authorize the music rights for a movie that would make MJ look like a terrible person? The movie could jump around in time a lot to skate around his diciest moments. Maybe they'll use AI to do MJ's physical transformation. If they're smart the movie will focus on the Off the Wall/Thriller years where the nephew's resemblance would be the closest to how Michael really looked.

It's not like the Best Picture contenders are all getting full showtimes everywhere. Anything already on PVOD/streaming is probably playing once or twice a day, and maybe at reduced prices. At my local AMC, TGM and Elvis are playing one time each today as $5 Favorites. Triangle of Sadness played once yesterday at 10:30 pm; today, The Banshees of Inisherin has that time slot there. The biggest Oscar boost will be on the ancillary market.

The rules about Oscar campaigns evolve as the Academy responds to studio tactics over the years. A lot of regulations in place now are in response to various stunts Harvey (and others) pulled. Here's an incident that led to the rules against negative campaigning, from 2004. The To Leslie situation with the Instagram post is similar--an official movie ad using quotes from critics implying this performer was better than that performer. The Academy forbids it, because they don't want the movies/actors openly running attack ads on each other. Awards season whisper campaigns aren't great but the situation could be much, much worse. Are certain parties angered by Riseborough shaking up the established system and looking for a way to nip similar stunts in the bud? Probably, on top of genuine anger about which actors will get to benefit from a last-minute "grassroots" campaign boosted by the A-list. And the rule violations (which might have slid, if the nom hadn't happened) will be the pretext for the Academy to punish, and warn other stars not to disrupt the awards ecosystem by trying this en masse next year.

From that Variety article about the official "To Leslie" Instagram post, is this the real reason Academy frowns upon members campaigning via private emails? Over 300 movies were deemed eligible for Oscar consideration this time around. "To Leslie" is said to be a tiny movie in the grand scheme of things, and they paid for at least 3 email blasts at $2,000 each. Some movies won't send any, and the biggest contenders take part way more often. Let's say it averages out to 5 Academy email blasts per movie, for 300 movies at $2,000 a pop. That's at least $3 million a year that AMPAS is charging to send out emails--what a grift! Even if it only works out to $1m per awards season, no wonder they don't want "grassroots" campaigns to take off...

With lesser awards shows, the producers know who's going to win in advance and arrange the show around it. Like, at the People's Choice Awards, they basically skip categories where the winner isn't there. For years, the Critics Choice Awards would conveniently have "ties" for the toss-up categories. The Oscars consider themselves as having a certain integrity, so only the accountants know how the voting went ahead of time. That's how you get disasters like the Boseman moment that wasn't, and the Moonlight/La La Land mixup taking so long to get corrected. With the Best Actress drama, the cynical solution would be for the Academy president to find out who was sixth, before making any other decisions. Deadwyler? Let her in! Colman? Never mind... I wonder if AMPAS feels letting in the sixth place person could upset the balance and unfairly tip the voting. The Emmys give out so many more awards and probably aren't as precious about their status/prestige as the Oscars. The Riseborough campaign sprang up pretty last minute, the big push came during the voting window a couple weeks ago. The Academy was probably preoccupied during the balloting process and not monitoring Frances Fisher's Instagram comments the way online fans were. Improper campaigning has happened before, the Academy ends up meeting to discuss it first, then tweaking the rules if needed, which takes time.

Based on recent Oscar precedents, yes. OTOH, 50 years ago... That was an eligibility issue vs potential campaign impropriety, and I'm not sure if Riseborough herself would be punished by AMPAS, just Academy members who may have overstepped. In the Alone Yet Not Alone situation, the songwriter was the one emailing Academy members, and he'd been an Academy governor, so it was seen as a leader abusing their power to influence voting. Here, they will probably just tell Frances Fisher to calm down. If they did DQ Riseborough, the easiest thing would be to go with the remaining four. What if, after all this drama, it's Olivia Colman or Emma Thompson in sixth place? And can you imagine if they copied that Godfather precedent and held a re-vote for the Best Actress nominees? AMPAS would be stupid to risk making this an even bigger cluster than it already is.

No one's going to jail or anything...but emailing Academy members to lobby for votes was part of what did in "Alone Yet Not Alone". AMPAS also has rules about negative campaigning: Williams and de Armas should be pissed, too, because it looks like they're the ones Fisher hoped to push out. #Messy Still, it depends on whether the Academy considers Frances affiliated with the To Leslie team or not, and how much they want to enforce their rules. And even if Rose Dawson's mom gets put in timeout for a year, it'd surprise me if they rescinded Riseborough's nomination.

Diane's Applause is so mid. Can we have Gaga sing her "Applause" at the ceremony instead, lol, a better song than what either of them is nominated for this year. The 80 for Brady song is truly terrible, though. Even without the Riseborough thing, you could see the Academy seeing an 80 for Brady nod on the horizon and saying "Enough!" and changing the rules to stop the cronyism at the nomination stage for next year. "Alone Yet Not Alone" got disqualified because of shady campaigning, but did manage the qualifying run. No one had heard of it, but IIRC it turned out that it played in an LA area theater for a week and AMPAS allowed the showtime listings in the newspaper to count as print advertising for the movie. Nearly a decade later, there aren't as many printed movie ads in newspapers, but there are more cities where you can do an Oscars qualifying run, since the pandemic. You could book the tiniest room at some multiplex in the outskirts of Miami (for example), say to the Academy, "Hey, the showtimes were on Fandango," and fulfill the qualifying run under the radar. Then just have a bunch of private screenings/dinners/etc later on in LA/NY as needed. According to IMDb, Tell It Like a Woman had a limited release on October 7, the same day as To Leslie...and Tár.

Riseborough better thank her if she wins lol, girlfriend posted the math and everything. It would be funny Frances Fisher's antics leads to Oscar voting rule changes to make another To Leslie stunt harder to pull off. They can have a BAFTA-esque jury system or let some members from other branches vote at the nomination stage, except...the non-branch members are selected at random, only knowing when they go to their ballots. That way, campaigning within the Acting, Music, Directing, etc. branch would only help so much in making the final cut. You'd probably get less Diane Warren name check nominations and maybe actors-turned-directors would have a chance again (without having to be gray-haired/seasoned first). It's pretty normal for men to get nominated for Oscars later in their careers than women, Adrien Brody is the youngest Best Actor winner ever at 29 and the tenth youngest Best Actress winner is 26. The Supporting categories give more room to younger performers but the list of youngest nominees ever skews younger for Supporting Actress vs Supporting Actor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_and_youngest_Academy_Award_winners_and_nominees

Next year, everyone will try this, which will dilute the effectiveness. Also, this sort of strategy favors actors with connections/powerful agencies over newbies or people not in The Club. With the AMPAS diversity efforts in recent years, this result is not a good look. Did you see Goop and Courteney Cox trying to copy/paste a nom for Tang Wei, or Kate Winslet hosting screenings for Nicole Beharie a couple years back? We all know who's going to benefit the most from these sorts of "grassroots" and "organic" awards campaigns. I wonder if the Academy will say anything or change the nominating process to blunt these sorts of efforts for next year. Positive comments about performances on social media, that's happened before, but this was something else. Frances Fisher especially took it too far IMO. She was literally posting on Instagram that Danielle and Viola (among others) were already locked for the nomination so this is how many first place votes Riseborough needed to get in. There's a difference between, "Andrea was great, remember her when you vote!" and openly saying, "Andrea was great, these are her competitors that you don't have to worry about voting for, here's the specific way you should vote instead." It's openly political in a way that AMPAS probably doesn't like; they have discouraged campaigning that mentions the competition before. The nominating process uses preferential rankings in the major categories, getting rid of that could combat some of the backdoor strategizing. At the win stage it's different, in most categories you just vote for one winner,. though Picture is still ranked choice

Social media has taken the air out of the Razzies' tired shtick. There's fresh ugliness/bullying towards movies and celebrities every minute of every day online, anyone can hit send on their worst of lists, it's not cute or clever by the time the Razzies have their say.

True, Universal would have been foolish to expect $80 million from The Fabelmans, but it just got over $15m domestic on Monday (Day 74). It's Spielberg and won TIFF, you would think that would get it to $20m even in a depressed climate. But maybe the accolades made the studio feel like they didn't have to try with the ads/trailers. IMO The Fabelmans should have been sold more as a family/coming-of-age drama, being seen as a celebration of movies hurt it with audiences.

Blonde got underpredicted all season because Film Twitter hated it, but de Armas hit most of the precursors and she fits the profile of a first time nominee in the category. Without the last minute frenzy over Riseborough, probably Deadwyler or Davis (a co-lead but the title character) gets in. Frances Fisher was a big Andrea cheerleader who belatedly insisted Danielle and Viola were safe for the nom, so RIP her mentions today. Horrible optics, now it looks like a big group of primarily white performers saw how racially diverse the category could be, and rallied around Riseborough to Make Best Actress Great Again. I think multiple people will try a guerrilla campaign like this next year but it probably won't work. Top Gun: Maverick missed for Cinematography and made it into Adapted Screenplay? It is much better than Top Gun so that probably went a long way with voters. Stephanie Hsu, happy for her. They really loved EEAAO, even going for the Original Song. I see Maestro running into a thousand minefields from casting controversies to biopic fatigue (from critics) to the sophmore directorial slump, plus Lydia Tár admiring Bernstein so much made me wonder if he's going to get cancelled from beyond the grave next year. Anyway I'm just going to keep my expectations low on that one.

A lot of IMAX documentaries that play in museums forever. The first movie on the "Never Top 10" list that's not propped up by IMAX seems to be The Artist, which was boosted by awards season back when that still helped. But even the early 2010s awards boost could only do so much for a silent movie in black and white. Interestingly The Artist covers a lot of the same territory as Babylon, while being much shorter and having a much smaller budget ($15m vs $80-110m).

Unlike most of this fall’s awards hopefuls the trailers/ads for Otto are very straightforward in selling a story that the "average moviegoer" would want to see. The actual movie isn't as lighthearted as the trailers, but "grumpy old neighbor learns to live again" with a big star lures people into theaters more easily than "The magic of movies!" and "Discussions of sexual abuse and/or racial violence for two hours," "Grim Irish comedy!" or "Talky classical music psychodrama!" Studios can try viral marketing but it still has to catch on. Apparently, there were some TikTok efforts for Babylon that were cringe, somehow. Viral marketing probably works for some genres/demos better than others.

IIRC, No Way Home had six weekends at #1, though they weren't all consecutive.

Consider was so strange, since IIRC, Melissa Leo was already the frontrunner when those ads appeared. It was like she got in her feelings that a teenager was serious competition in her category, so she responded with messy interviews and Glamour Shots. Pundits at the time actually wondered if her overt thirst was going to ruin her chances at winning. But this Riseborough thing is different than an actor hyping themselves Dozens of actors are regurgitating the same copypasta out of no where for a movie that got released last October. Frances Fisher is literally in the IG comments posting the math of how many votes Andrea needs to make the Top 5. WTH?