While 2017’s comic book movies escaped the wrath of the Razzies, it appears that The Motion Picture Academy was less than impressed. Of the year’s seven Marvel and DC Comics-based projects (including The Lego Batman Movie), only two picked up Oscar nominations.
With the exception of Justice League, all of the movies were major critical and box office successes. They were visually epic, narratively refreshing, and full of truly exceptional performances. The genre doesn't bring in much more than two or three Oscar nominations in any given year, but we thought that 2017 would be different. An optimist might hope for more than a dozen nominations; a pessimist might expect a half-dozen or so.
The 90th Academy Awards nomination list was officially announced today. Superhero movies bagged a mere two nods. Logan made history as the first comic book movie to land a nomination in the Adapted Screenplay category. More predictably, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was nominated for its visual effects. Wonder Woman, which generated a substantial amount of Oscar buzz and seemed like a surefire contender, received no recognition at all.
Here's the list of all the nominees in both categories:
VISUAL EFFECTS
Blade Runner 2049 (John Nelson, Gerd Nefzer, Paul Lambert, and Richard R. Hoover)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Jonathan Fawkner, and Dan Sudick)
Kong: Skull Island (Stephen Rosenbaum, Jeff White, Scott Benza, and Mike Meinardus)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Ben Morris, Mike Mulholland, Neal Scanlan, and Chris Corbould)
War for the Planet of the Apes (Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, Dan Lemmon, and Joel Whist)
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
Call Me by Your Name (Screenplay by James Ivory)
The Disaster Artist (Screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber)
Logan (Screenplay by Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green; Story by James Mangold)
Molly’s Game (Written for the screen by Aaron Sorkin)
Mudbound (Screenplay by Virgil Williams and Dee Rees)
The snub dealt to Patty Jenkins and her team isn't the only depressing thing here. It’s sad that both Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart’s outstanding performances in Logan were passed over. In fact, we viewed Stewart as an obvious choice for the Supporting Actor category. We also expected The Lego Batman Movie to be nominated in the Animated Feature Film category, but that didn't happen either.
