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Academy Anonymous
Oscar Season 2024-2025; Final Predictions; Fantasy and Period Titles Dominate Production Design But Can You Trust a Contemporary Film to Break Into the Nominees
On this episode of ACADEMY ANONYMOUS:
- A very complete consensus five for Production Design
- A Robert Eggers breakthrough Below-The-Line
- Susie Davies just the right kind of vet and “Conclave” the right kind of vehicle to beat the “Contemporary Curse”
- Overlap between sister categories - Production Design, Costume Design and Makeup
- The mandatory Visual Effects nominee
- Can Production Design and Cinematography go 5-for-5
- Directors who Production Designers seriously love - Tim Burton & Ridley Scott
- Is it ever wise to discount Arthur Max for a spot among the Production Design five
- Is the lineup COMPLETE without a historically-rendered period piece - the secret weapon for “A Complete Unknown” spoiler
- Can breakthrough “Nosferatu” Below-The-Line love translate into Best Picture
hello oscar watchers. We're a couple of hours or a few days, depending on how you look at it before oscar nominations come out, and you're joining us on the Academy Anonymous podcast. I'm your co-host, joseph.
Jules:I'm Jules.
Joseph:And we're going to start talking about production design. That's achievement. In production design, we're finally talking about a category that does not have a long list from the Academy, so we get to contemplate all 114 films that were submitted in this category.
Joseph:No, but really it's kind of interesting. This category does not have a long list but it has sort of calcified over the last few weeks into what is more or less a solid top five consensus for this category and let's talk about what those films are and we'll go little by little and we'll start talking about what we're seeing as locks likely, very possible, very possible, vulnerable.
Joseph:So let's start with a film that I think is certainly a lock here, and I think that's nathan crowley, getting in for his work on wicked yeah I think that's a for sure thing to be nominated yeah, I agree 100 okay, and then we can also talk about dune 2 and that possibly being a lock. What?
Jules:do you think I agree?
Joseph:lock, okay. And then of course, there's the work on the Brutalist, judy Becker, the production designer there.
Jules:I think that's a lock too, even though there's been recent reporting of possible usage of AI for certain things. That's in the ether.
Joseph:I heard AI directed it. Brady Corbett hired AI to direct it.
Jules:But whatever the case, that's not going to affect the nominations. That sort of controversy came out too late. It may affect the winners. However, right now the Boodle is for production. Design is a lock.
Joseph:I think that you're right. I think the film, though, is challenging enough and certainly long enough to possibly be a film that could potentially be snubbed here. But the fact that Judy Becker has been nominated before for her work on American Hustle and the very nature of the film having to do with architecture, Exactly. I think it is a lock here and then after those three, opinion has sort of calcified around the final two which. I think we have some pretty interesting things to talk about.
Joseph:But, let's start with Conclave right, best Picture movie. We're going, you know, behind the scenes into the quote. Unquote papacy has a lot of detail into it and I think a lot of people are also high on this idea that Edward Berger managed to get that nomination for All Quiet on the Western Front and that he's goingger managed to get that nomination for all quiet on the western front and he's going to have some of that leftover goodwill yeah, I agree.
Jules:I think that this category isn't super welcoming to films that are contemporary yeah, so that's certainly something that's going against conclave.
Jules:However, um, I think it benefits from its competition. It benefits from being a strong best picture contender. It benefits from its setting, so to speak, of the film and its entirety having so much to do with that setting that has a real life anchor to it. So that's something that this category should have something real life, not fantasy, or something that's very that. This category should have something real life, not a fantasy, or, yeah, something that's very rooted in reality. And so, even though Conclave is certainly possibly not, you know, the story is clearly not rooted in reality, the setting is, and so I think that's one reason that it's doing well in this category and why I see it as being a very likely nominee here.
Joseph:I mean. Another element to talk about is the idea number one that it is a contemporary piece and, as you said, that is we'll call it the curse of the contemporary Notoriously difficult to be a contemporary piece and be nominated here. You know, when you think of something like Barbie, that's something that production designers sort of classified as fantasy and less contemporary, although there is contemporary elements. Same thing with poor things and poor things.
Jules:There are these, the fantasy elements the fusion of fantasy and contemporary or fantasy and period.
Joseph:Those are the things that you know help the movie, make the finish line exactly this movie doesn't have that, but what it does have is former academy award nominee, suzy davies right I think doing the production design she was nominated for mr turner.
Joseph:I believe that was her first nomination, but she's sort of been dabbling with these contemporary films and she had a lot of good mentions for work that I thought was great in Saltburn last year, right, so she won her guild for that and so I think that's a big help here is that Susie Davis is a former nominee, right, right, and then the other thing to talk about about the final film happens to also be a focus features release.
Joseph:Interesting winter focus features release burning up the box office. It's nas for ratu, right, right. What do you think about that?
Jules:you know, the race has calcified into those five, nas ratu being that fifth spot, um. I do think it going in its favor is that it was really peaking at an important time, being a hit over Christmas. I also think that its genre and its sort of folklore setting helps it be something that could be attractive to this voting body to look at, to put on the screener, to watch and to put on their ballot. I hesitate because he's never been recognized by this branch, the production designer.
Jules:The production designer correct, and that it's also his first nomination at the Art Directors Guild. Right and again, Robert Eggers' films haven't really spoken to many people, many branches other than cinematography at the academy right.
Jules:This stands to be one that's going to break that mold.
Jules:How, to what extent it's going to break it is a question mark um, for me personally, I'm a little bit skeptical of it because just the very nature of the film like I said, the setting uh, helps the film quite a bit in this regard.
Jules:However, the way the film is constructed, its palette, you know, it's really dark Um, and sometimes the setting can be a little bit more in the background. Um, as you experience the film, again, the the, there's a lot of shading, there's a lot of darkness. Um, again, the palette is very, has a very particular hue to to establish a certain kind of theme and to pay homage, and so I think those elements of the film I think murky the waters a little bit in terms of the production design and it getting recognized by this guild. Now, add to that what I mentioned earlier about, uh, this production designer not being recognized yet by this branch and their first nomination at the art directors guild. I'm I'm not 100 sold on it. I do think it benefits from its competition, like I said, and its success at the box office, but I could, I could see it easily be a surprise snub all right.
Joseph:Well, those are the five that have sort of cemented themselves into this category and are the consensus five. You know, it's interesting because two Focus Features titles their Focus Features, I believe hasn't pulled off two nominations here before. They're very different titles. At the same time they have very specific vulnerabilities that you just spoke to. Now it's interesting because the five that are being quoted as the cemented five and I don't know if you think those are the favorites at this point they happen to go five for five with the BAFTA nominees. Right.
Joseph:Right and not impossible to repeat five for five. I think last year we saw all five BAFTA production design nominees become all five Academy award nominees for production design, and I think also in 2017, we saw all five BAFTA production design nominees become all five Academy Award nominees for production design. But barring those two years, what if I told you that, on average, bafta is only getting three of their production design nominees into the Academy Award top five for production design. It's concerning which do you think are the higher ranking three?
Jules:It would probably be the Brutalist Dune and Wicked. Right, I would say. But I feel that, just based on the year that we're in, the competition that we have, I do think it's going to be, at the very minimum, four repeat.
Joseph:Well.
Jules:Because Conclave, I think, looks pretty strong here.
Joseph:Right, so four is pretty good. I think it has happened, maybe at least once. Like I said, they averaged three and they have gone in five before, although it's certainly not always. Maybe the year has calcified enough. I'd like that among your listed five and the cemented five there's a lot of crossover between costume and production design, because we should see films. Sort of get both you know, costume designers and production designers.
Joseph:They really do speak to each other, and so they're looking at films that are nominated at the Costume Designers Guild and costume designers are looking at films that are nominated at the Production Designers Guild and they're looking at the other films at BAFTA that are going to hire for costume production designers guild and they're looking at the other films that bafta, the gun iron for costume. All these guilds, all these, all the members of these branches are sort of looking at their neighbor categories and seeing where I can find another interesting potential nominee right, and so I like that. You have a lot of crossover there. And then the other category that you should look at also is something like cinematography, where we've seen a lot of crossover there as well. In the year 2021, I believe, all five production design nominees which didn't match bafta's production design nominee list.
Joseph:They were also the academy list for cinematography right and so, among the five, how many of those are being considered for cinematography right now?
Joseph:right, the buddha list dune and nasaratu and conclave four yeah, so that, so four, I think, is a good number yeah I'm not sure it should be five, but four is a pretty healthy number yeah, and so beyond costume and beyond cinematography the other category that really speaks to production designers at least there should be one film, if not maybe one or two films. Sort of bridging the two categories is something like visual effects, and so it has to be that the favorites to sort of bridge that gap, I believe, should be dune 2 right I think it's dune 2, but I think for most people might even be wicked over dune 2.
Jules:Oh, that's right, because you do have multiple yeah we're, we're, we're not, we're, we're not as confident in the wicked visual effects nomination, but certainly I think that's.
Joseph:Those two films are the ones to look at, to, to show up here yeah, dune 2 should really be, at the very least, the one movie minimum that there should be bridging visual effects and production design, and, like I said, you'd have to really look to find a film that does not bridge those categories.
Joseph:Right now we've talked about the cemented five, but let's see if we can possibly sniff out where the spoiler is here. I think you and I have already pointed out to the couple of films that are vulnerable. If we do not see those films make it to the end, let's see if we can figure out which film or two could possibly leap in front of them by just a little bit. And we don't have a long list here, so it could be all 114 films. But we can use a couple of things to sort of narrow down the field. Right, and why don't we start with the art directors guild? Right, and the first category to look at is period, and so the nominees were a complete unknown gladiator 2, nas for rot 2, saturday night, and the brutalist.
Joseph:Right, and of those five, we're projecting the brutalist nasferatu to make that final five right and they are the only two to cross over with bafta production design correct right, right, and then usually period is going to give you three to four nominees and I will say it's a little bit off.
Jules:Our numbers are off, because we only have two right now.
Joseph:But the other titles Saturday Night, A Complete Unknown and Gladiator 2, you would assume are running behind some of the films, for example, in fantasy for the Art Directors Guild and the nominees for fantasy were Alien, Romulus, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice Dune 2, Furiosa and Wicked, and usually we're getting one to two films from there and usually no more than that, and it seems very clear that we are going to get at least two films from there Right, right, exactly. Barring a major upset. We should see Nathan Crowley and we should see Dune 2 both being nominated. Right.
Joseph:So that's four, and then there's the contemporary category, which again there's the idea of the curse of the contemporary category, and that's where you're going to find conclave civil war. Emilia perez, the substance twisters right and so we're sort of pegging and everyone else is sort of pegging conclave to come out of that and to have two period films, two fantasy films and one contemporary film right, not a bad balance.
Joseph:it's a nice balance, but again, the only contemporary films to really pull this off were Parasite, Best Picture winner and Foreign Language Film winner. It was one of the few texts it was able to get. What about the Father, which is another Best Picture nominee winner for Best Actor? And what about La La Land? Right, La La Land was another production design contemporary nominee that was able to get this nominee out. So the sort of pattern I'm trying to pitch here is conclave stands a very good chance because it is a best picture nominee and it also has suzy davis behind it, so I'm thinking that it's going to follow in those same steps I agree 100.
Jules:It'd be interesting to see some other films make some noise here, but they're, as you were saying, far behind Some films that made this fantasy category, like Furiosa, who definitely deserves to be on this list of production design nominees, but won't. Yeah, but you were going to bring up.
Joseph:Well, I think the other element to bring in here to sort of factor in, is, if we want to narrow all those titles from the art directors guild even further, I think the place to look at is the bafta long lists, and the long list from bafta have been a real blessing in terms of really narrowing down the field. Um, as I said, the BAFTA nominees for production design, the BAFTA 5 production design. They usually result in only five nominees at the Academy, which might leave out Conclave and Nosferatu, and if we're sort of saying that there's some vulnerability there, the BAFTA long list has eventually shown all five academy award nominees. So if there is a movie lurking to sort of spoil the fourth or the fifth spot, you should expect to find it on that bottom half, those films that got left out of bafta right
Joseph:and the films that got left out at bafta. Those were beetle, were Beetlejuice, beetlejuice, blitz, a Complete Unknown, gladiator 2, and the Substance. Now, a bunch of those got nominated for the Guild but one did not. And that's Blitz, right, right, and you would expect that Blitz would have had a more prominent showing at BAFTA, right, especially for someone who's been nominated as often as Adam Stock stockhausen. But the fact that it didn't is probably a red flag, right, but it is there on that bottom half of that list, which means that if there's going to be a spoiler, maybe adam stockhausen has enough favor within the branch to get nominated here right, well, his, he's never been nominated without a film being known for best picture, correct?
Joseph:yeah, that's the. I think the achilles heel for his campaign is that his four nominations they all came with best picture films and blitz seems too far, that seems like too far a bridge for them. Right, and you know, speaking of too far a bridge, I think the other film here that I think is just too far for the academy to embrace is the substance right exactly again.
Joseph:You talk about the curse of the contemporary. There's, uh, the filmmakers behind that are the designers behind that. They're not necessarily known by the guild. They got nominated for the production design the production design guild this year, but they're not necessarily very well known and also we have a strong contemporary contender, exactly I do not think that we I don't think that we are in a place to be nominating or seeing two nominations for two contemporary films unfortunately right, so that leaves, so that really just leaves beetlelejuice.
Joseph:Beetlejuice, a Complete Unknown, and Gladiator 2, of which maybe the favorite here to steal a spot is Gladiator 2 because it is designed by Arthur Max right, which is a pretty storied name for production designers and certainly within the Academy for nominations, and several of which came with working with ridley scott. I think possibly all of them came with.
Joseph:Ridley scott was nominated for the first gladiator has yet to win, will hopefully win at some point, but I wonder if his name is going to be too tempting to leave off the list, and when you see a contemporary piece, or you see the production designer of Nosferatu who, again, whose career isn't as expansive yet, if it's going to be too irresistible to not include Arthur Max, voting these branch members a lot of the times they're voting by habit of the filmmakers that they have perceived or experienced to be great at sort of exploiting or demonstrating the power of their craft. Exactly.
Joseph:So you'll see a Steven Spielberg film, even when he's working with a new production designer or a production designer he hasn't worked with before or who's relatively new. The power that Steven Spielberg has to influence members of the production designer branch is immense. They know that Steven Spielberg uses production design in a very specific way, in a compelling way, in an interesting way, in a way that's visually telling the story, and so, no matter who he collaborates with, production designers are going to pay attention to who.
Jules:Spielberg is working with. That's an excellent point, no matter who he collaborates with production designers are going to pay attention to who Spielberg is working with. That's an excellent point.
Joseph:No matter who, Christopher Nolan works with the same thing. I would argue there are filmmakers like Lanthimos and Chazelle who also have that sort of reputation. Right right.
Joseph:And Ridley Scott is one of those filmmakers. Ridley Scott is a filmmaker who is really respected amongst the members of the production design branch and certainly his collaboration with Arthur Max will be sort of historic and is really well regarded. And here they are again. I could easily see him sort of leapfrog, someone who's just getting started, who in maybe 10 years time will have that same sort of weight with the production designers and that's. Robert. Eggers and his collaboration with his production designer.
Jules:What I don't like is that he was just nominated last year for napoleon arthur max exactly and so that, to me, is one of the biggest things that gives me pause. I don't think he's ever had back-to-back nominations at the academy no he hasn't.
Jules:And so I think part of this uh for the branch is going to be this understanding that napoleon, you know, wasn't as big of a thing as it could have been. You know it managed three nominations because the techs in that film are very strong, and managed those nominations without the film really doing more than that. And then it's a similar story with Gladiator 2, a film that doesn't stand to get several above the line nominations or have a huge impact in this Academy season and might just get a few little sprinkled nominations here and there. This is a category that he was just in last year. I feel tempted to think that they're going to want to go somewhere new.
Joseph:Yeah, that could be the case. And speaking of something like, again, those filmmakers that have a reputation for, you know, really highlighting production design, you have Tim Burton with Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice he's working with a team that isn't necessarily the one that he's most known for, the one that he has helped reap nominations, but certainly any Tim Burton film is going to strike the curiosity and the interest and probably the admiration of production designers, and I think that's why it's even on this BAFTA long list. Granted, we have possibly too many fantasy films as it is, and that's the Achilles heel.
Joseph:But there's also, there's an aspect to Beetlejuice, beetlejuice where the you know production design is a little bit more based in you know modern, you know contemporary, right right, there is that element contemporary, exactly that might not be as well regarded yeah um, but now that we speak about gladiator 2 and beetlejuice, beetlejuice and those being filmmakers, and possibly even steve mcqueen and adam stockhausen whose collaboration on 12 years a slave was adam's first nomination right and certainly, you know, a world war War II film that's done accurately or attempts to be done accurately is going to be something that's attention calling to members. There's something to be said about how the cemented five is pretty well rounded in the fact that we have four previous nominees and only one newbie, and that sort of one newbie is the production designer of Nosferatu and the other production designers. They've all been nominated before, whether it's Judy Becker for the Buddha List or the Conclave team or the Dune 2 team or the Wicked team.
Joseph:So I think there's something you know very balanced about that. But at the same time, the production designers if you look at them historically at the academy, when they're nominating new people, a couple of things are happening. Either they're nominating new artisans that have not been nominated before, but they're getting in with their movie that is a best picture movie.
Joseph:And so, for example, the team from poor things is not, does not have a very expansive filmography, but because poor things is this huge best picture movie, it's easy for them to be nominated and eventually win that category right, and the other thing is that by that point maybe your ghost has a little bit more of a reputation to already coming off of something like the favorite to sort of highlight right production design in these sort of period fantasy fusions right correct.
Joseph:But is that the case for Nosferatu? Nosferatu? The production designers are probably just being exposed to Robert Eggers for the first time, his production designer for the first time, and it's not. No one is really pegging it to be a best picture, sure thing right now right right.
Joseph:So you would wonder if the production designers usually, when they're letting in someone in new, it's because their movie isn't best picture or because their director, for example, happens to be someone who's been highlighted by that guild before. I think of, for example, the team behind the Tragedy of Macbeth in 2021. They were able to be nominated for the first time and that was also not a best picture movie, so very much like Nosferatu.
Joseph:Sort of like Nosferatu, has this sort of very specific atmosphere, right, very specific detail. But the Coen brothers, by that point, had sort of been, you know, introduced to the production designers, whether it's in all their filmography, but specifically movies they nominated, like True Grit, and so Robert Eggers doesn't have that yet right. So I do wonder if that is possibly what's going to undo the nazferatu nomination here right.
Jules:I think that those are all excellent points and really get to the core of why that film is vulnerable in this section, in this uh category. Um, I'm unsure of what's going to happen with that film. I want to say that I feel tempted to stick to the consensus Again. I like the genre that Nosferatu is in, I like the world that it's playing with. I really feel like the palette, like I mentioned, I think, could hurt it a bit, the palette that's in the film. Um, I'm not sure, do you see other contenders that you would say, oh well, there's a big one that we haven't talked about.
Joseph:Well, I think the last one to talk about is possibly the dark horse here the biggest dark horse the biggest dark horse because on paper no one is rushing to include it, and I understand that.
Joseph:And certainly on paper one would argue that the biggest dark horse is someone like arthur max for gladiator 2 right but what if we talk about, for a second, a complete unknown right, right which made its guild at the production designers guild in the period section where we only have two films right now? Right, and we can also talk about this idea that it also made the bafta long list, and if we're saying that the bafta has all nominees, it's there in the films that were left out.
Joseph:But it also brings an element into this category that isn't really there right. So we have our period films, we have our fantasy films. We even made room for a contemporary film, we have one new individual and we have a film by previously nominated designers and we have a film that you know has had directors sort of put their stamp on what the craft can do, like edward berger and certainly, uh, nathan crowley and the team of universal, who's trying to recreate oz, and you know denivo new, who's been nominating this category for Arrival and Dune. So he's no stranger here. But what about the idea that there really is no film on this list that is sort of extremely historical or extremely recreational, trying to recreate something very specific? Right.
Joseph:You know they're either dealing with sort of mythical spaces or fantastical spaces or spaces, you know, in the sense of conclave, that do exist but are again being sort of attacked from a sort of mythical sort of way. You know no one has really been so deep inside the Vatican that we know that this is. You're quoting something right, right, whereas you have a movie like A Complete Unknown that has these photographs and these references and they're trying to quote them as closely as possible.
Jules:Right and it was a big endeavor of trying to make.
Joseph:New.
Jules:Jersey into Greenwich Village.
Joseph:Exactly, and it's very, you know, detail oriented and there are moments in the film, unfortunately, that could be a little bit broad, but there is possibly enough scenery that is era specific.
Joseph:And that does the job, as you said, of trying to make it Greenwich Village Right, and so I wonder if maybe that isn't the film that's going to leapfrog either the contemporary piece in Conclave or Nosferatu, which is just too new in terms of being introduced to both the designer and Robert Eggers. You have A Complete Unknown which is again a more historically or trying to be a more historically accurate recreation.
Joseph:James Mangold, you know doesn't do so great in this category well in this category, but the production designer has been nominated a bunch of times by his guild. He's never won, but we know this movie already is a much stronger film than people had perceived a month ago. It's possibly a top five film.
Jules:And as we were saying, yeah, as we had mentioned.
Joseph:We had mentioned, you know, a while, a while back when we started catching wind of what kind of film it was and what the reaction was. But the other thing about it is that the set decorator, who again is in charge of so much of this detail, you know they are a previous oscar nominee.
Joseph:They were nominated, I believe, for their work on the irishman right and so I do wonder if the mirage of the dark horse is arthur max but sort of the real dark horse is possibly a complete unknown sneaking in here I think that's really well said and completely accurate.
Jules:I think you're 100, right. Um, I worry about complete unknown getting both a production design nomination and a costume design nomination, and we're going to talk about that when we get into costume. I think it's one or the other. I do expect Complete Unknown to get a good number of nominations. I don't expect double digit nominations. I worry that the more categories you put in there, the higher we get to that double digit range. Right, that the more categories you put in there, the higher we get to that double-digit range.
Jules:I do think that it'll be impressive for production designers to consider a film that undertook the undertaking of making New Jersey into circa Bob Dylan Greenwich Village. However, I know that I remember reading in reviews when the film was coming out that certainly critics thought that there was work put into that space, into creating that world, but that it wasn't 100% believable, so as to say I can appreciate the work but I'm not 100% convinced that it's New York. I wonder if that kind of nuance is something that can be present for the members of this branch also, and also that beyond that New York world that we're recreating, a lot of the spaces are interior spaces, smaller spaces. There's certainly a lot of accuracy to them, but not as attention calling as that recreation right.
Joseph:Speaking of, yeah, that I think that on paper it would certainly be, you know, less impressive than the work that's being done on nosferatu and gladiator 2, but I wonder if it hits just that sweet spot in terms of well, here's a production designer that we're going to let him for the first time. Well, lo and behold, he's getting in for a best picture movie, right, unlike nosferatu. And in terms of well, here's a production designer that we're going to let him for the first time. Well, lo and behold, he's getting in for a.
Jules:Best Picture movie, unlike Nosferatu, and sometimes we talk about this symmetry that happens with filmmakers and their films, and so if you go back to the last time that this filmmaker had an Oscar contender and walked the line, that film ended up getting a costume design nomination but it didn't get an eye for production design, and so there might be the symmetry to having him sort of in this kind of genre once again and this time landing a production design nomination right, and you know we've already flirted with the idea that maybe walk the excuse me, a complete unknown is going to fulfill the journey that walk the line started and yes, we're possibly getting into that area of double digits when we talk about a film that's a top five film according to the british academy right and a top five film according to the director's guild award, I know we're talking about films that are a film that is now it's a big deal technically ahead of dune 2 and technically ahead of wicked when you talk about that maybe the idea of flirting with double digits for this movie is not a bad one.
Jules:I go back to previous films that are sort of tackling articulating a very iconic figure, especially in the music space. I think about Elvis and how that film got eight nominations and so I like around that number for it. You know that sort of a nomination range, but I a hundred percent see what you're saying. Yeah.
Joseph:The other interesting thing is that if we were to somehow consider taking out Nosferatu in favor of a complete unknown, we're going to have a strictly best picture race between all these films that we are anticipating to make. The final 10, right, they will all be best picture nominees between all these films that we are anticipating to make the final 10 right they will all be best picture nominees.
Joseph:I think that'd be interesting because it puts them more or less on an even playing field right there isn't necessarily a name that is so much further out there possibly nathan crowley possibly, but he's had so much more luck with christopher nolan's films than with other individuals films. So so I kind of like that idea that all five production design nominees are Best Picture nominees.
Jules:That doesn't happen often.
Joseph:You know, I think it's happened a couple of times, but it doesn't happen often. And then the other thing I'll say is, you know, speaking of that sort of bias that some of those production designers have in terms of bringing in a film that doesn't have a, hasn't had a, a filmmaker, sort of grow with them and grow reputation with them, like robert eggers or the production designer, because they've never really singled him out at the guild, the baft, at any other award at the academy. Due to all that, if nosferatu is strong enough to get this nomination, I would not be surprised if it is strong enough to steal the 10th spot in Best Picture.
Jules:I think that would be very surprising to a lot of people, just based on the kind of movie. It is Right, and you know it's also the kind of film that did really well at the box office, yeah, but I'm not 100% certain all those people who did see it how they loved it, right, even though I think it's a strong film. Um, but robert eggers is a is an artist that you know goes his own way. Um has a very particular style. Uh, has very particular theme themes. He wants to communicate in a very specific manner. Um, so I'm not sure that I think it's popular enough to get into that top 10, but certainly it would make sense as you.
Joseph:What if you were pressed and you had the option either include nosferatu in production design and bump it into picture, or dump nosferatu and replace it with someone else in production design? Which option do you think is more likely, or do you think?
Jules:I think it's more possible. I I think of those two. I think the latter that they dumped Nosferatu for production design yeah.
Joseph:Yeah, I think that could very well be.
Jules:That's what I'm thinking, that maybe something like Gladiator 2 or Complete Unknown could end up doing. Well, for right now, my final prediction is going to be the Calcified 5, the Brutalist Nosferatu Dune, Part 2, Wicked Conclave, and the one with the question mark attached to it is Nosferatu, and my spoiler is going to be a complete unknown.
Joseph:I think that's a very, very complete list. I'm going to go with the Brutalist Wicked Dune 2, conclave beats the Contemporary Curse, but for that fifth spot I'm going to leave out Nosferatu. Okay. And I'm going to put in A Complete Unknown. Okay, and for my spoiler, I know that Nosferatu is very tempting and, as I said, I mean the power of Chris Columbus could possibly get this movie into that 10th spot. But if not, I think it's very unwise to place a bet against Arthur Max.
Jules:I think his reputation is just too legendary at this point. Right, that's a really good point. Well, those are our final predictions for production design. Again, tune in to our Twitter to see the very, very, very, very, very final.
Joseph:Yeah, a screenshot of what our final, final predictions will be Right. All right, that's everything for us here at Academy Anonymous today. We thank you for joining us Till next time. I'm Joseph.
Jules:I'm Jules and it's been a pleasure. The music on this episode, entitled Cool Cats, was graciously provided by Kevin McLeod and license under creative commons by attribution 3.0. Http//creativecommonsorg.
Joseph:Licenses forward slash by forward slash 3.0 disclaimer thelaimer the Academy Anonymous podcast is in no way affiliated or endorsed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.