5 Year Rewind of the 2018 Oscars, M3gan's Big Weekend is a Big Deal for James Wan and Jason Blum, and more
What Won vs. What Should Have Won in 2018, how did my box office projections work out for M3gan, and algorithm appreciation day for my Netflix homepage
And the Award for Best Picture FROM 5 YEARS AGO Goes to...
Oscar’s Best Picture winners can age like fine wine (The Godfather), rotten milk (Green Book), or something in between (Driving Miss Daisy). Minds have changed over time about certain films that were originally widely panned. For instance, Caddyshack was famously hated by most critics but is now regarded as a classic comedy. In a similar way, audience ratings can be flawed from films being review bombed (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) to others complaining of boredom and not understanding or appreciating the depth behind a film (Annihilation).
One thought Bill Simmons and others have suggested is to have a 5 Year Academy Awards contest. The idea being people need to let things bake a while before making final judgements about certain movies. Maybe if this would have happened in 2006 Brokeback Mountain would have won over Crash.
Here are some changes I would have changed when looking back 5 years ago at the 2018 Oscars:
Best Picture
What Won: The Shape of Water
What Should Have Won: Get Out
The voting body behind the Academy clove to support movies that focus on filmmaking or Hollywood history (The Artist, Argo, and I am sure there are more movies starting with A that fit this description). While I genuinely enjoyed Shape of Water as a dark celebration of classic cinematic romance and creature features, Get Out is the film from this year that feels the most impactful today. This feels similar to 1994 when Forrest Gump won over Pulp Fiction. Like Quentin Tarantino, Jordan Peele took home Best Original Screenplay at the ceremony, and he went on to be regarded as one of the best original filmmakers of his respective era.
If Get Out would have won Best Picture, another “wrong” could have been righted with Lady Bird getting the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. #SacProud
Best Supporting Actor
Who Won: Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Who Should Have Won: Willem Dafoe for The Florida Project
I liked Three Billboards more than many of the Twitter critics, but I still felt like this was one of the best chances for Dafoe to finally take home an Oscar. Alas, Rockwell and McDormand dominated the entire award season.
Who Won AND Probably Should Have Won
Best Director: Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water
Best Actress: Frances McDormand for Three Billboards…
Best Actor: Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour
Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney for I, Tonya
Shape of Water was a well executed film, so del Toro finally winning Best Director still feels right. Oldman and Janney both did great work with little competition for their categories. It was also fun to see McDormand become one of the most decorated actresses winning for this, Fargo, and eventually Nomadland.
Tik Tok’s “Must Have Toy” M3gan is Another Franchise Launcher for James Wan and Jason Blum
With a reported budget of $12M, this modern take on the killer doll story didn’t need to beat Avatar: Way of Water to be considered a success this weekend. Based on the engagement this film was getting on #TikTok alone, I projected this would meet Smile’s 2022 opening domestic gross of $22M. It ended up this and other lower end projections for a $30M opening.
For a total global gross projection, a good range still looks like Scream’s 2022 $140M on the low end and scary doll cousin / fellow James Wan produced Annabelle Creation’s $306.5M for a best case scenario.
Final Predictions from my share on Post:
$22M domestic opening weekend
$95M domestic total
$223M worldwide total
Those kind of numbers will give James Wan and Jason Blum another potential franchise, and according to Deadline a sequel in on the way. It could also lead to a merger being widely reported between Wan’s Atomic Monster Productions and Blum’s Blumhouse. This new production studio, with a pedigree of films including The Conjuring, Insidious, Paranormal Activity, and The Purge to name just a few, would immediately become a powerhouse creating some of the only original movies consistently over-performing at the box office. It would also rival all-time great horror studios like Universal’s classic monsters and “the house that Freddy built” New Line Cinema.
Netflix algorithm appreciation post
What a glorious snapshot this is from my #Netflix account:
Not sure how “accurate” the Top 10 is but I love seeing films from Noah Baumbach, Rian Johnson, and possibly my top film of 2022 with Matilda the Musical (but that is a review for another day).
Also, Netflix is teasing me with The Burbs and Fletch. I think the kids must have ruined my algorithm with Pan, but that’s my only real issue with this curation of awesome content “just for me.”