As Expected Marvel is Pushing BLACK PANTHER For a Best Picture Oscar Nomination
Black Panther was a huge success for Marvel and Disney Studios. It exploded at the box office cracking the all-time top highest-grossing films domestically. The movie also received a ton of positive critical acclaim.
As expected, Marvel and Disney are reportedly pushing the film to be a major contender for Best Picture at the Acadamy Awards next year. While that's all fine and dandy, it seems like this kind of film is the reason that the Academy created that new "Outstanding Popular Film Award", which is a category that is meant to honor the films that audiences really care about. Right? But, Black Panther might have a chance because the film celebrates diversity.
According to The L.A. Times, Disney has hired veteran Oscar strategist Cynthia Swartz to orchestrate a campaign around Black Panther, "with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige backing the move with a significant awards season budget, a commitment Marvel has never before made." According to. another Oscar consultant:
"Right now, I think [academy Chief Executive] Dawn Hudson would crawl in a hole if ‘Black Panther’ gets snubbed for best picture and winds up landing in the popular film category. The funny thing is that Dawn would be way more disappointed than anyone at Marvel."
When previously talking about his excitement about the chance of Black Panther being recognized by the academy, Kevin Feige said::
"I would like to see the hard work and the effort and the vision and the belief of the talented filmmaker Ryan Coogler, who sat across the table from us a few years ago and said, ‘I have been wrestling with questions about my past and my heritage and I think I really want to tell a story within this movie.' And that he did it so unbelievably well and with so much impact … seeing that potentially being recognized is what excites me the most.
“I think it would be wonderful. The people behind the camera, the people on screen that acted in the movie, any of them being recognized would bring us great joy because they did tremendous work. And it’s always nice when tremendous work is recognized.”
While Black Panther was a great film, I personally didn't think it was a better movie than Avengers: Infinity War. But it seems like people aren't really looking at it as a "Best Film" they are looking at the cultural impact of the film and the movement it stands for. A veteran Oscar campaigner noted:
"You want to remind voters that this wasn’t just a movie, it was a phenomenon. The depth of that impact, what it meant to people, what it stood for — if academy members didn’t get it then, they need to understand it now."
What do you think about all this? Do you think Black Panther deserves a nomination for Best Picture?