THE AWARDS EDITION 2011-2012

Award SeasonOverview: BattleRoyal Between theMajors & the IndiesBy PeteHammondCOURTESY OF DEADLINEwarriorWith awards season kicking into gear we are set for another David vs. Goliathbattle between the majors and the indies, with each side coming prepared withformidable weapons in their respective arsenals.Recently, the majors have been upstaged in the final voteby upstart indies. Last year, The Weinstein Co.’s The King’sSpeech rode a victory at the Producers Guild Awards all theway to a best pic Oscar © over The Social Network (Sony), TheFighter, True Grit (Paramount) and Toy Story 3 (Disney). In2009, Summit’s little-war-film-that-could, The Hurt Locker,had the smallest gross ($17 million domestic) of any bestpicture winner ever but still ran over 20th Century Fox’sAvatar, the most successful film of all time ($2.78 billionworldwide). The Academy has now tweaked the recent ruleof 10 nominees, which helped the majors land best pic slots,creating a scenario in which anywhere from five to 10 titlescan be nominated. Still, the majors have an exceptionallystrong slate and they’re hoping to break their best picturedry spell: The last studio to take home the top trophy wasWarner Bros. for 2006’s The Departed. And though majorstudios seem more obsessed in creating money-mintingtentpoles than bathing in Oscar © glory, the ego still flies onthe lots and majors would like those front-row seats at theKodak just as much as Harvey Weinstein.04 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01Warner Bros.Warner Bros. kicked off its fall season on Sept. 9 andbefore that at the Venice Film Festival with Oscar © -winning director Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, aserious thriller looking at the fight to stop a global virusoutbreak. Although Warners just wanted to grab thegrown-up audience and make some nice change ($120million-plus worldwide B.O.), it still hopes it can be anOscar © contender.Warners’ two biggest bets are the recently released J. Edgarand Dec. 25 biggie Extremely Loud and IncrediblyClose. The latter is a post-9/11 drama with serious Oscar ©cred in stars Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock and directorStephen Daldry, whose first three films – Billy Elliot, TheHours and The Reader — each landed him a best directorOscar © nod. As for J. Edgar, it stars three-time Oscar ©nominee Leonardo DiCaprio, was written by Milk’sOscar © -winner Dustin Lance Black and directed byfour-time winner Clint Eastwood. Couple that with aJ. EDGAR| The Majors |biographical portrait of the controversial FBI director andyou have the stuff Oscar © voters usually eat up.The studio also hopes to be back in the animation race withthe sequel to its 2006 winner Happy Feet Two, whichbows Nov. 18. And from earlier in the year it has ambitionsthat voters who have previously ignored the ever-so-lucrativeHarry Potter franchise will decide the summer smash, HarryPotter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is worthy of theequivalent of a lifetime achievement best picture slot.Walt Disney &DreamWorks StudiosOther than The Muppets (Nov. 23), which is not likely togarner serious awards attention and last summer’s Cars2 and Winnie the Pooh in the animation race, Disney’sbest bets are in its new partnership with DreamWorks,which opened The Help to great box office ($190 millionplustotal worldwide) and Oscar © buzz and has one moregiant contender slated for Dec. 25: Steven Spielberg’sadaptation of the Tony © -winning best play War Horse,an irresistible boy-and-his-horse story set in World War I.The trailer is promising, and the film is already on the tipof every Oscar © pundit’s tongue. As for The Help, it seemsContinued, p06