“Wicked” has claimed a win at one of the first major stops on the way to the 2025 Oscars.
As the opening line of Stephen Schwartz’s musical goes, “Good news!”
or is it?
On Wednesday, the National Board of Review named big budget adaptation Broadway premieres its top film of the year.
Adding to the accomplishment, “Wicked’s” Jon M. Chu won best director.
Meanwhile, their stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande missed out on Best Actress and Supporting Actress awards (they went to Nicole Kidman for “Babygirl” and Elle Fanning for “A Complete Unknown”, respectively).
Instead, the green and pink duo received a joint special award for “Creative Collaboration”.
Before you hop on a Swifter and start chanting “defying gravity,” there’s just one problem with these honors — statistically, they’re cursed.
At least it can be said that the group’s record is poor.
The NBR Best Picture winner has won the top Academy Award only three times in the past 24 years: “No Country for Old Men” (2007), “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008) and “Green Book” (2018).
That’s an 8% success rate since Y2K.
The same number applies to their Rocky Best Director Oscar overlap: Steven Soderbergh (“Traffic,” 2000), Ang Lee (“Brokeback Mountain,” 2005) and Martin Scorsese (“The Departed,” 2006).
If I were universal, I would “hate” those obstacles.
The National Board of Review – a New York-based organization that, according to its website, is composed of “enthusiasts, filmmakers, professionals, academics and students” whose tastes rarely align with those of the Oscars, is a body of 9,375 Hollywood professionals. Is a group. ,
For example, the Academy’s director branch, which chooses its Best Director category, prioritizes craft over popularity.
Last year they nominated Justin Trite and Jonathan Glazer, whose “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest” had zero dance numbers or flying monkeys.
The opening weeks of awards season have been quite crowded. The Gotham Awards crowned its winner, “A Different Man,” and the Independent Spirit Awards also announced its nominees on Wednesday.
As both honor indies, “Wicked” was as inept as it gets.
The New York Film Critics Circle gave “The Brutalist” its highest honor, which rarely snatches an Oscar.
But the only title mentioned so far by each of these organizations is “fantastic.”Anora,
It was nominated for Best Picture by Indie Spirits and Gothams, and won Best Screenplay at the NYFCC.
Sean Baker’s New York-set comedy is also one of the National Board of Review’s 11 best films of the year, which also includes “Wicked”: “Baby girl,” “A complete unknown,” “conclave,Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,gladiator ii,Juror #2,” “queer,” “a real painand “sing sing.”
If history is correct, about half of them will not be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. There will be “Rogue” and “Anora”.
The old sports adage is “statistics are for losers,” and perhaps the music will defy the odds.
After all, it’s been a strange year with no awards season juggernaut or consensus from pundits. People are looking for something concrete to hold on to.
The AFI Awards and Golden Globe nominations are coming up in the next five days, where the “Wizard of Oz” riff should do well.
Fans will be praying that the Oscar race has been changed… forever.
