Tag: Where Do We Go Now?

Toronto Gives Awards Life to Chuck

The Toronto Film Festival has concluded its 2024 business with the reveal of its People’s Choice Award and the 1st and 2nd runners-up for the prize. This announcement is eagerly awaited by Oscar prognosticators and for good reason. Since the Academy expanded beyond 5 nominees for Best Picture (it now stands at a firm ten but has been 8 or 9 in other years), the People’s Choice recipient has received a BP nod in 14 of those 15 years. The exception was 2011 when Where Do We Go Now? was the victor. Therefore the past 12 winners were Oscar BP contenders.

In 2023, we saw Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction vaulted into contention and ended up with five total nominations, taking the statue for Adapted Screenplay. In 2010, there was only one runner-up. Since 2009, that means 44 features have been People’s Choice selections or runner-ups. Of those 44, 25 went onto Academy nominations for BP. This includes Best Picture winners The King’s Speech, Argo, 12 Years a Slave, Spotlight, Green Book, Parasite, and Nomadland. In recent years, it’s become the norm for 2 of the 3 movies that Toronto names to make the Oscar ten. In addition to Fiction last year, The Holdovers was 1st runner-up.

All that context is pretext to an obvious point… this is a key precursor to the Oscars. Much speculation centered on Sean Baker’s Anora taking TIFF’s highest honor. The acclaimed film already picked up the Palme d’Or at Cannes and is seen as a threat to not only be nominated for Best Picture, but win. Mikey Madison is among the frontrunners for Best Actress. Instead it was 2nd runner-up. That third place showing, by the way, has been shared by Spotlight, Call Me by Your Name, Roma, Parasite, and The Power of the Dog.

First runner-up went to another Cannes premiere: Jacques Audiard’s musical crime flick Emilia Pérez. It’s also widely assumed to be a BP hopeful a few months down the line with potential acting nominations for Karla Sofia Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, and Selena Gomez. Recent 1st runners-up include Argo, Marriage Story, and the aforementioned The Holdovers.

Had Anora or Pérez gotten first place, no one would have been surprised. Same logic applies to Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night which was picked by some to win, place, or show. The actual recipient was unexpected and it’s The Life of Chuck from Mike Flanagan. It joins fellow People’s Choice honorees Precious, The King’s Speech, Silver Linings Playbook, The Imitation Game, Room, La La Land, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Green Book, Jojo Rabbit, Nomadland, Belfast, and The Fabelmans.

Mr. Flanagan is best known for his contributions to the horror genre. That includes adaptations of Stephen King novels Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep. His largest claim to fame is his show running work on Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and The Fall of the House of Usher.

Chuck is a departure… sort of. It’s adapted from a Stephen King novella, but is more of a sci-fi effort. Reviews were solid (87% on Rotten Tomatoes and 66 on Metacritic). However, this was not really seen as a BP contender. Distribution and the release date are still influx. There’s no trailer.

Its awards narrative has certainly changed as of today. You can expect the People’s Choice champ starring Tom Hiddleston, Mark Hamill, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, and Jacob Tremblay to pick up a distributor in a hurry. An awards campaign will surely follow. I’ve yet to even consider Chuck in my top 25 possibilities for BP. That won’t be the case when I pen my next update. Even if it’s not ultimately up for BP, Adapted Screenplay seems like a strong possibility now. Make no mistake. Toronto has given unanticipated life to Chuck.

Toronto Crowns The Fabelmans

Just how indicative is nabbing the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival of eventually receiving a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars? Let’s go the numbers: 13 out of the last 14 have and that includes the past 10 in a row. 2011’s Where Do We Go Now? is the only outlier since 2008. Of those 13 films, five would go on to win the Academy’s top prize (Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, 12 Years a Slave, Green Book, Nomadland).

So it was with anticipation that awards prognosticators like yours truly awaited the bestowment of the Canadian fest’s biggest award. True to form, it went to a movie widely anticipated to be in the BP mix: Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans. The legendary director’s most personal work to date was his first journey up north and he was rewarded handsomely for it. When I did my latest round of predictions on Friday, I had The Fabelmans listed in first place and this helps solidify that decision. Don’t get me wrong – this doesn’t mean the BP race is over (far from it). Yet there’s no doubt that The Fabelmans has positioned itself as a major threat to take the top prize.

That’s not all because TIFF also names a first and second runner-up. And those picks are frequent indicators of what will play down the road. Over the previous decade, nine of the 20 runner-ups have gotten BP nods. This includes victorious ones like Argo, Spotlight, and Parasite and nominees such as Call Me by Your Name, Roma, and The Power of the Dog. 

Sarah Polley’s Women Talking is first runner-up for 2022. It played to mostly raves at TIFF and I have it ranked 4th currently in the BP derby. Second runner-up was Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. The top 3 placement is something predecessor Knives Out didn’t manage 3 years ago. My estimates two days back put Onion on the outside looking in at 14th (though I did project for it for an Adapted Screenplay nod). My hesitation to put it in is this: just how many sequels could that Academy include in their group of 10? I’ve got Top Gun: Maverick already there (at 6th) and we still need to see Avatar: The Way of Water and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (whose predecessors were both BP hopefuls). However, at this point, Netflix may choose to go all in on Onion being their most likely contender.

There are a couple films in particular that could’ve benefited from a top 3 showing today. I think immediately of Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale and Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin. I still anticipate both to be in the hunt (I’ve got them ranked 5th and 7th respectively).

Bottom line: The Fabelmans had itself a meaningful premiere in Toronto that currently puts Spielberg’s latest in the Oscar driver’s seat.