New York, Jan. 24 (BNA): A year after the streaming service won Hollywood’s most prestigious award for the first time, the big screens are poised to dominate the nominations at the 95th Academy Awards on Tuesday.
Nominations will be announced at 8:30 a.m. EST from the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California. It will air live on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and will be broadcast live on Oscars.org, Oscars.com, and on several of the Academy’s social media platforms.
The names of the nominees will be read out by Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”) and Allison Williams (“M3gan”).
If all goes as expected, “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” and “Elvis” could each get between six and nine nominations.
If last year’s Oscars were dominated by “CODA” streaming on Apple TV+ winning Best Picture, Netflix took home 27 nominations and lured moviegoers to multiplexes making up several of this year’s top contenders.
“Everything Everywhere at Once” includes the independent sci-fi film A24. Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan’s multiverse-crossing story could get away with most nominations on Tuesday, including nods to Michelle Yeoh and returning baby Ke Hui Quan.
Also high on the pack is The Banshees of Inisherin’, a black comedy from Ireland’s Martin McDonagh that is set to score up to four acting nods, including nominations for Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.
Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” struggled to catch on with audiences, but the director’s biographical coming-of-age tale is set to give Spielberg his 20th Academy Award nomination and his eighth for Best Director.
Longtime composer John Williams should extend his record for having the most Oscar nominations for a person alive. Another nod for Best Score would give Williams his 53rd nomination, which is only 59 for Walt Disney.
However, many questions remain, such as whether the love interest of Top Gun: Maverick will go far enough to win Tom Cruise a Best Actor nomination. The other highest-grossing movie of the year, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” should also do well in the technical categories, though it’s not certain if director James Cameron will make it to Best Director.
After that category saw the first of back-to-back wins for female filmmakers — Chloe Zhao (“Nomadland”) in 2021, and Jane Campion (“Dog Power”) last year — no women are expected to be nominated for Best Director. .
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will surely celebrate the best of a picture field filled with blockbuster films. Broadcast TV ratings have typically been higher in years with the most-watched films as favorites.
Last year’s awards looked like a comeback version of the Oscars before “The Smack” came to define the ceremony. In the aftermath, the Academy banned Will Smith from attending for 10 years. Although he still could have been nominated, Smith’s performance as a runaway slave in “Emancipation” fell short.
Last year’s broadcast drew 15.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen, up 56% from the record low of 10.5 million viewers for the 2021 telecast marred by the pandemic. This year, ABC is bringing back Jimmy Kimmel to host the March 12th party, a ceremony that will surely be seen as a return to the slapstick.
But the biggest concerns revolve around the film industry. The past year has seen flashes of a triumphant resurrection for theaters, such as the success of Top Gun: Maverick, two years into the pandemic. But in part because of a less steady stream of major releases, ticket sales for the year have only regained about 70% of the business in pre-pandemic. Regal Cinemas, the country’s second-largest cinema chain, has announced the closure of 39 cinemas this month.
At the same time, storm clouds engulfed the Flowing Realm after years of seemingly boundless growth. Shares fell as Wall Street looked to streaming services to turn a profit, not just add subscribers. A retrenchment followed, as the industry once again enters an uncertain chapter.
In stark contrast to last year’s Academy Awards, this year may not see the most coveted Oscars titles head-to-head contested although the last spots in the Top 10 field are still up for grabs. Instead, the best Netflix picks come in other categories, notably with animated favorite “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” and the German show, “All Quiet on the Western Front.”