Studios Push Crowd-Pleasers For Oscar Glory

New York Times:

LOS ANGELES -- Walt Disney is in. This week the studio will break new ground by starting a campaign that boldly offers its "Wall-E" as a contender for the best picture Oscar, an honor never yet won by an animated film.

Warner Brothers is in, too. That studio recently telegraphed plans for a multifront Oscar campaign for its Batman blockbuster "The Dark Knight" by sending awards voters a query about their preferred format for promotional DVDs.

Not to be outdone, Paramount may join the party. Along with Marvel Enterprises, it is weighing an Oscar push for "Iron Man" and its lead actor, Robert Downey Jr., even while promoting Mr. Downey as best supporting actor for his role in the DreamWorks comedy hit "Tropic Thunder."

Welcome to the pop Oscars.

After years of giving plenty of running room to independent film companies or studio art house divisions that set the pace with critic-friendly but limited-audience films like last year's "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood," this year the major studios are pushing some of their biggest crowd-pleasers into the thick of the awards race.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[BustMyChops]

The reason the Oscars ratings keep going down is because the show is run like crap. There are more commercials every year. But most of all it's because they cut the winning speeches every year. It's embarrassing to watch. They always show clips of famous acceptance speeches, but don't give anyone time to give a classic speech. Give the winners time to speak! That's what award shows are for!
Also virtually all the nominee films come out in December. There is no time for anyone to watch these movies on video. I used to work at a video store and years ago people could rent half of the nominated movies. Now almost none are out by awards time. If the producers gave a damn about film the show would be much better off. Trying to hip the show up is a loser. Nowadays the Academy Awards might as well be run by WallMart.

[slobone]

Probably not going to happen. Oscar voters are pretty snooty about these kinds of movies. Beauty and the Beast snuck in under the radar, but you'll notice no cartoon has been nominated for BP since. And I don't think any comic book movie has ever been nominated for one of the big awards (unless you count Star Wars).

[bookon]

The Dark Knight -- a crowd pleaser?

Are they nuts? It's a great film. It's a DARK film. It's a crime movie with a hero and a villain using costumes, to hide from the world their true selves. It is not a superhero film. It is not a popcorn movie. It is NOT Iron Man or Spiderman. It is more like Heat or The Godfather. It will and should win several Oscars.