It’s been a busy week, hasn’t it?
With the Venice Film Festival lineup announced, giving us the world premieres of Bardo, The Whale, The Son and so much more, and the TIFF reveal of Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelman‘s having its world premiere there and first wave announcement of Toronto gala and special presentation films today, you’d think that would be enough to really get early Oscar predictions kicked into high gear. And truth be told, it certainly does. The Spielberg news is monumental; his first appearance at the Canadian festival and the director’s first festival appearance for one of his big awards contenders since 2015’s Bridge of Spies (it kicked off at NYFF, as did 2012’s Lincoln, each won an acting Oscar). He’s just never been a big festival starter as a director so this is kind of a big deal. He made a big Oscar comeback last year with West Side Story, which earned seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won Best Supporting Actress for Ariana DeBose. All without any festival presence and a mid-December release. With The Fabelman‘s landing in theaters for the Thanksgiving holiday and making a festival run, it’s hard not to see it as a frontrunner right now.
But, amongst all of this real news came the unconfirmed report that Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon for Apple Original Films might be pushed to 2023 and be a Cannes Film Festival premiere. Now, this isn’t a revolutionary idea, thinking that a Scorsese film might be pushed a year – his very long post-production schedules are well documented – but what major and minor outlets did was use language like ‘is’ and ‘will’ without any actual word or confirmation from Apple or anyone from the film itself. Deadline originated the rumor in a piece from July 26 by Justin Kroll and Mike Fleming, Jr. in a new column they call The Dish where they explicitly state: “This will start a regular column for Deadline journos to plant their flag in deals, hires and firings and industry developments before they’re fully baked.” Industry developments before they’re fully baked. Essentially, a column of rumor and speculation before any facts or truth are known. That’s fine, that’s a part of predicting and a part of talking about the industry. Later in the day, in an interview with Deadline, Alberto Barbera, artistic director of the Venice Film Festival, revealed, inadvertently, that Killers of the Flower Moon was “far from ready,” saying “probably a Cannes or Venice film next year. It’s a long edit.” So, by all accounts, Deadline sourced this from their interview with Barbera only (who, incidentally, misspoke in the same interview, saying that The Fabelmans would actually be at Telluride first. That interview has now been edited and amended). But, the damage was already done as several Film Twitter accounts began running the rumor as fact, with even Variety jumping into the mix saying “Now with Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” with Leonardo DiCaprio officially going into 2023,” again with no actual official confirmation of anything. On top of that, the speculation continued that Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation, starring newly minted Oscar winner and banned Academy member Will Smith, would suddenly be reappearing as a 2022 release. No word from Apple this week amid these rumors as they’ve been occupied with films like Causeway, The Greatest Beer Run Ever and Raymond & Ray announced for world premiere kick offs at TIFF.
So what does all of this mean for my Oscar predictions? In a sense, everything and nothing. It’s absolutely possible that the $200M Killers of the Flower Moon will land in 2023 (although a Cannes kick off seems so out of sync). For Paramount Pictures, Apple’s theatrical distribution partner for Killers, lifting it from 2022, where that studio has another huge triple digit budgeted Oscar contender in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, makes a lot of sense.
Apple will also have Ridley Scott’s Napoleon next year with Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby, which has a rumored May release (based on a source of mine from the film, possible Cannes opener?). Where I land with all of this? For now, it’s business as usual and I’m treating Killers of the Flower Moon as a 2022 release (and Emancipation and Napoleon as 2023) until things are confirmed either way. If and once it’s officially set for 2023 then it simply comes out of this season’s predictions and we move on. Same goes for Emancipation and Napoleon. It’s that simple.
Here are my 2023 Oscar predictions in Best Picture and Best Director for July 2022.
Green – moves up ↑ Red – moves down ↓ Blue – new entry ♦
Other contenders (alphabetical):
Without distribution
Green – moves up ↑ Red – moves down ↓ Blue – new entry ♦
Other contenders (alphabetical):
Without distribution
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