It isn’t an Oscar article without Slumdog or Milk, right?
I wrote about the Best Picture hopes for Milk and Slumdog Millionaire a few days ago. Today, while putting things I should be doing off, I stumbled upon an article titled “The Oscar Recession” on The Daily Beast. Two movies absent from this article’s analysis of the race: Slumdog Millionaire and Milk.
Now, it’s not a post about specialty divisions and their hopefuls. Instead it focuses on the recession’s effect on publicity budgets for mainstream studio Oscar contenders. The question I have is does a pared down budget for the studio pictures mean that specialty divisions’ films will have a better chance at the Best Picture prize?
If the studios are being more judicious with their budgets and, as this article implies, the contender list shrinking because studios want to back a winner late in the game, Fox Searchlight and Focus Features may in fact have a better chance of getting their long-awaited Best Picture win. They’ve been building buzz in a traditional manner for months without having to rely on a sudden impact at the end of the year.
Then again, as the article states, the big winner could simply come down to this:
The Dark Knight is exactly the kind of film that may help the Academy itself, which makes revenue off the Oscar telecast, weather the financial crisis.
That’s an idea I’ve been behind for months.
Related:
Nov. 9 – Early Oscar Contenders: Slumdog Millionaire V. Milk?
Nov. 8 – Oscar Predix
Sept. 11 – The Dark Knight to get big Oscar push
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