It’s getting close to the time of 12 months when the manager committee of the Academy’s visible results branch selects the 10 shortlisted films that will continue within the VFX class race, and among the many anticipated contenders, the department also has some sudden choices to consider.
While the presumed frontrunner, James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, won’t be launched till Dec. 16, the sequel to the director’s 2009 fantasy film appears a fait accompli for the shortlist. The work was led by Weta FX and four-time Oscar-winning senior VFX supervisor Joe Letteri (who with Weta also led the work on the unique Avatar, which received the VFX Oscar). The Way of Water entails new strategies, including those utilized in efficiency seize.
Also anticipated are a number of contenders from the long listing of this year’s effects-laden Marvel and DC motion pictures, which embrace Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder, as nicely as DC’s Black Adam and The Batman. (Individuals in this combine embrace Black Adam‘s manufacturing VFX supervisor, Bill Westenhofer, who previously won Oscars for Life of Pi and The Golden Compass.)
In 5 of the previous six years, at least one Marvel film has been nominated in the category. (The exception was the 2020 season, when, due to the pandemic, the studio didn’t have a theatrical release.) The catch: Despite the recognition and scale of those films, the final time a comic-book-based function claimed a VFX Oscar was 18 years ago, for 2004’s Spider-Man 2 — lengthy earlier than the Marvel Cinematic Universe dominated the field office.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
There’s a variety of additional contenders. Among them are the high-flying VFX in Top Gun: Maverick, the dinosaurs of Jurassic World: Dominion, Harry Potter franchise film Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the intelligent Everything Everywhere All at Once and Jordan Peele’s sci-fi movie Nope (whose manufacturing VFX supervisor is another multi-Oscar-winning contender: Guillaume Rocheron, who previously received Academy Awards for 1917 and Life of Pi). Not-yet-released titles include Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation, led by three-time VFX Oscar winner Robert Legato (Titanic, Hugo, The Jungle Book).
Amazon documentary Good Night Oppy has a shot at a doubtlessly notable placement on the shortlist. Industrial Light & Magic created 34 minutes of absolutely CG photographs for the doc, which follows a pair of exploration rovers as they journey to and round Mars, including their touchdown and mission work on the floor of the Red Planet. Should it make the shortlist, Good Night Oppy can be solely the second documentary to attain this feat. Welcome to Chechnya — with its creative use of face-swapping strategies to provide participants a “digital disguise” — became the first documentary to make the VFX shortlist, in 2021, although it didn’t make the final 5.
There’s additionally potential to have a number of animated films on the shortlist.
On uncommon occasions, animated options have been nominated for the VFX Oscar, including a pair of stop-motion movies: 1993’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and 2016’s Kubo and the Two Strings.
Depending on what you consider an animated movie, Jon Favreau’s 2019 The Lion King additionally was nominated within the category.
The previous nominations of stop-motion films might sign a chance for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio and Wendell & Wild, the latter from director Henry Selick, who helmed the aforementioned Nightmare Before Christmas. On event, CG animated movies such as Pixar’s Ratatouille have additionally found themselves within the race.
The Oscar shortlists shall be introduced Dec. 21 for VFX, in addition to documentary characteristic, worldwide function, makeup and hairstyling, rating, music and sound, and animated, documentary and live-action shorts.
This story first appeared in the Nov. 21 concern of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
