NEW YORK (AP) – Entries for Monday’s 93rd Academy Awards look – in more ways than one – unprecedented.
After a pandemic year that closed most movie theaters, almost none of the best-looking film candidates have any box office. It will be an Oscars not only without blockbusters but with many films that have not been played on the big screen. Streaming services are expected to make a big impact on the biggest and most popular awards in Hollywood.
But even though the images – to paraphrase Norma Desmond – literally grew smaller in a film year that made the coronavirus pandemic, they were also more diverse. Monday’s nominations are poised to take history into the management category, and feature an arena in which the highest number of people of color could be named.
Nominations will be announced starting at 8:19 am EDT with Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra Jonas in a two-part show that will be broadcast live on Oscar.com, Oscars.org, and the digital social platforms of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
The film and ABC academy, which will broadcast the Oscars on April 25 (a two-month delay due to the pandemic), hopes candidates will be able to do more energy than elsewhere. Interest in small gold images has emerged at the time of the pandemic. Rates for the highly significant Gold Globes, with Zoom acceptance speeches, fell to 6.9 million viewers – a 64% drop – last month.
Monday ‘s lead nominee could be a traditional kind of Oscar movie: one about Hollywood. “Mank,” David Fincher a black-and-white code to Hollywood written by the late director’s father about “Citizen Kane” co-writer Herman Mankiewicz, apparently receiving double-digit nominations, thanks to his actors (Gary Oldman , Amanda Seyfried) and her masterpiece.
“Mank” directs Oscar storm for Netflix that sees the climber picking up at least three nominees in the best picture, including Aaron Sorkin’s courtroom drama “The Trial of the Chicago 7 ”- a film shot by Paramount Pictures in the midst of the pandemic – and August Wilson’s adaptation of” If Rainey’s Black Bottom. ” Chadwick Boseman, the best striker, is expected to be named half a year after his death in August at the age of 43..
Amazon also mixes with “Sound of Metal,” “Borat Moviefilm After That” and “One Night in Miami.” Other celebrities were widely seen on streaming platforms, including “Judas and the Black Messiah”. (on HBO Max), “Soul” (on Disney +) and “Wolfwalkers” (on Apple TV +). Because of the pandemic, the academy suspended its rule that theater must be released.
But perhaps their favorite in the Searchlight Pictures picture is ““ Nomadland, ”Chloe Zhao’s elegant road movie about a woman (Frances McDormand) living out of her van. Zhao is arguably the first woman of color to ever win for best director and the sixth sixth woman ever named. Zhao could be joined by Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”), Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”), Regina King (“One Night in Miami”) or Spike Lee (“Da 5 Bloods”) in an excellent section he belonged to white people through Oscar history.
Applicants in action also tend to be diverse. Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey”) could be the most famous Black actress in Oscar history with four. (She won for “Fences.” 2016) Other candidates may include Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”), Steven Yeun (“Minari”), Yuh-Jung Youn (“Minari”), Leslie Odom Jr. (“One Night in Miami”) and Daniel Kaluuya (“Judas and the Black Messiah”).
Aside from stimulating the growth of streaming subscribers, the pandemic has been punishing for the film industry. Production slowed down, blockers were turned off or removed to a stream and thousands of them were shut down or cooled.
But the outlook for Hollywood has recently clarified as coronavirus cases have slipped and vaccines have gone up. Movie theaters are reopening in the two largest U.S. markets, New York and Los Angeles. And there are a number of bigger films – including Walt Disney Co.’s “Black Widow”. (May 7) – scheduled in May and beyond.
Representatives of this year’s Oscars – Jesse Collins, Stacey Sher and Steven Soderbergh – have not yet announced any details about the April 25 show but Deadline Hollywood recently reported they are watching the move of the telecast from the Dolby Theater to the Los Angeles Railroad, Union Station. Wherever it takes place, the broadcast will be expected to do its utmost to encourage viewers to revert to the films.
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Follow AP film writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP