Hope & hype

Kudos season has too many contenders and few shoo-ins

By TIMOTHY M. GRAY, IAN MOHR

Every year, studio execs proclaim that it's a wide-open year for Oscars -- convincing themselves that their film has a chance. But this time, they mean it.

Now that the final contenders for 2005 have been screened and the various voting orgs have weighed in, it's clear the race is a free-for-all.

Up until a few weeks ago, many Oscar pundits were predicting that Universal's "Munich" was the film to beat. At that point, there had been no screenings of the pic, so the seers' subtext was unmistakable: "I haven't seen anything so far that's a shoo-in, so it must be a film I haven't seen."

But after "Munich" started screening Dec. 4, the handicapping changed.

Nearly every major film goes through four stages: advance buzz, post-screening acclaim, backlash and counter-backlash. After a shroud of secrecy and a Time magazine story proclaiming the film a masterpiece, "Munich" jumped from advance buzz to immediate backlash, just as voting got under way for last week's kudos.

One month ago, conventional wisdom said studio biggies like "Munich" and Sony's "Memoirs of a Geisha" would dominate, while a bunch of niche pics would pursue the few remaining slots for an Oscar best-pic nom.

But when Golden Globes noms were unveiled last week, "Munich" and "Geisha" were nowhere to be found in the drama category, and a bunch of little-pics-that-could again came to the fore.

Focus Features' "Brokeback Mountain," Warner Independent's "Good Night, and Good Luck" and other niche pics suddenly seem to have the upper hand. But, in a topsy-turvy year, rival campaigners have a few words of advice for those working on "Geisha," "Munich" and other underachievers: Don't panic. Things can change.

In theory, early kudos attention is supposed to clarify the field. This year, it's thrown even more confusion into the race. Usually, there are seven or eight films vying for the five best-pic slots. This year, there are a dozen.

Like a fluctuating share on the New York stock exchange, a film's prospects can rise or fall quickly. Early last week, the front runners seemed to be "Brokeback Mountain" and "King Kong," based respectively on kudos attention and pre-opening buzz. "Mountain" has maintained its momentum since it screened at Telluride in September. But "Kong" earned only $9.7 million on its opening day (Dec. 14) in the U.S. Suddenly its profile changed from unstoppable winner to what's-the-problem-with-this-movie?

Will that affect its Oscar chances? Nobody will know until noms are unveiled Jan. 31. Final ballots are due Feb. 28 -- and every contender will see its heat rise and fall between now and then. Last year, for example, early fave "Sideways" was supplanted by "The Aviator," which in turn yielded to "Million Dollar Baby."

Aside from "Brokeback," "Good Night" and "Munich," there are a bevy of pics -- "Syriana," "Crash," "Capote," "A History of Violence," "The Constant Gardener," "Jarhead" -- with the imprimatur of current-events themes.

Other pics that have gained rabid fans and some kudos attention include Fox's "Walk the Line," U's "Cinderella Man," DreamWorks' "Match Point," Sony Classics' "Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," Focus' "Pride and Prejudice" and New Line's "The New World." They have varying degrees of hope, but little certainty.

The Golden Globes are often touted as an Oscar bellwether, but many this year doubt that tout.

"There are years in which the Oscars and the Globes are similar, and years in which they are not -- I've been there before," says one studio specialty film head regarding this year's Globes picks.

He recalls a recent year when his arty underdog pic was snubbed by the HFPA only to emerge with two Oscar noms -- and one win -- on Academy Awards night.

Another exec adds, "The Golden Globes went very arty this year. I think this will be a year when they are different from the Oscars."

Voters at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences have a mind of their own, often saluting films overlooked in other seasonal prizes, such as "Chocolat," "Il Postino," "The Full Monty" and "The Thin Red Line." In 1997, "L.A. Confidential" won every major critics prize; the Oscar went to "Titanic."

Scruffy indies like Orion ("Amadeus"), Island Alive ("Kiss of the Spider Woman") and Hemdale ("The Last Emperor") first emerged in the 1980s as players in the Oscar race, with Miramax leading the indie charge starting in the 1990s.

Since then, the kudos competition has run through cycles, with Oscar alternating between smaller fare like "American Beauty" and bigscale pics such as "Gladiator."

This is arguably the most wide-open year in a decade: In 1995, entrants in Oscar pools lost money debating whether the winner would be "Apollo 13" or "Sense and Sensibility." The winner was "Braveheart."

Such uncertainty forces studios to make tough choices. No studio has an unlimited budget for awards campaigns, but each wants to promote its films and curry favor with filmmakers and talent. So with no clear frontrunner, and a series of mixed messages regarding what movies are hot, awards voters can expect a lot of high anxiety in the next few months.

Some players are able to switch horses in midstream, perhaps none as deftly as Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Co. was third in Globes noms this year, behind Focus and U.

Back at Miramax, the honcho might have flogged one title -- say, "All the Pretty Horses" or "Cold Mountain" -- only to realize buzz was building behind another, like "In the Bedroom" or "Finding Neverland." With a swift shift in direction, Miramax could then drop one pic and light a fire under another -- a move sure to drive marketing execs crazy, but one that worked.

This year, after being in business for just over a couple months, the Weinstein Co. raked in seven Golden Globes noms, including three for "Mrs. Henderson Presents."

"It's been a great 74 days, what can I tell you," quips Harvey Weinstein.

On the HFPA's indie bent this year, he adds, "They are a critics group with scrutiny, and they picked films like 'Match Point,' which is a superior piece of filmmaking in my opinion. Reaction to the (bigger-budget) studio films has been mixed. So we're not only rooting for our own stuff, but rooting for the people around us. I've been in Terrence Howard's corner for years."

After a rocky year marked by flagging ticket sales and few out-of-left-field hits, the majors entered the fourth quarter facing steep expectations. Only a month ago, forecasters were predicting that films like "King Kong," "Munich," "Narnia," "Geisha" and "The Producers" would compensate for the year-long box office shortfall and provide some popular choices for the Oscar race.

Anxieties over the sluggish theatrical market could persuade Academy voters to rally around old-fashioned crowd pleasers like "Narnia" or "Harry Potter." Then again, they could just as easily turn the back on mainstream studio titles.

"What it proves is that all the old rules go out the window and the only rule is to make something distinctive and emotionally captivating," says Mark Gill, prexy of Warner Independent Pictures, which released "Good Night" as well as "March of the Penguins."

Among studio niche units, Focus Features seems to have best captivated kudos voters. It's at the top of the Golden Globes heap with 12 noms, for "Brokeback," "Gardener" and "Pride." Compare that to Fox Searchlight, which a year ago scored seven Globes noms, but this year, with "Bee Season" as its prime player, got zilch.

Despite the confusion surrounding the current Oscar race, some themes are beginning to emerge:

• Having a social conscience is no guarantee you'll get nominated, but it doesn't hurt.

• It's a banner year for George Clooney - as actor, director and producer - just as 2000, the year of "Erin Brockovich" and "Traffic," was a benchmark for his partner Stephen Soderbergh.

• The abundance of gay and transgender roles -- from "Brokeback Mountain" to Philip Seymour Hoffman as Capote and Felicity Huffman in "Transamerica" and Cillian Murphy from "Breakfast on Pluto" -- is notable. But it isn't likely to win the studios any friends among conservative groups who complained earlier this year that SpongeBob was a gay role model.

• As usual, it's a back-loaded contest. Of the 19 films that earned two or more Golden Globe noms, 10 were December bows. Only two opened in the first half of the year.

These relatively new films may get a box office boost from all the awards attention, but their niche status may worry execs at the Academy and ABC.

Members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. have voted for several contenders that assure viewer interest for their Jan. 16 NBC telecast, ranging from helmers Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg (who were nominated, though their films weren't) to movie stars like George Clooney, Paul Newman and Halle Berry.

The Oscars always provide stellar presenters, but viewers watch the show in greatest numbers when they have a favorite film to root for.

In the year of "Titanic," 55 million U.S. viewers tuned in. That was a big jump from the 40 million who tuned in one year earlier, when the Academy nominated a bunch of little films like "Secrets & Lies," "Fargo" and "Shine."

(Jonathan Bing and Pamela McClintock contributed to this report.)