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Michael Cieply, writing at The Carpetbagger (which, if you haven’t been aware, has been transformed into a year-round film blog at The New York Times rather than solely focusing on the awards season), has put up brief addressing a few titles that, as of yet, have no U.S. distributor but are very much on the minds of studios looking for latter year Oscar hopefuls.
“It’s time to think about the Oscars,” Cieply writes, “or it is if you happen to be a film distributor with ambitions for the award season that, thankfully, won’t start for the rest of us until at least September. At least a handful of movies with awards potential, but no U. S. distributor so far, are being watched closely by players in the game.”
Cieply then goes on to list six titles in play: Alejandro Amenábar’s “Agora,” Jane Campion’s “Bright Star,” Jon Amiel’s “Creation,” Jean-Marc Valle’s “The Young Victoria” (reviewed by Guy earlier this month — he wasn’t a fan), Peter Weir’s “The Way Back” and Grant Heslov’s “Men Who Stare at Goats.” Three of those were listed specifically my year-in-advance Oscar column back in February and, of course, all but one have been listed in our contenders section for over a month. The list comes from the mouth of an anonymous industry source who’s looking, however, so I’ll admit it has more stroke than my petty ponderings.
The inclusion of the Weir film is a surprise, however. Just last month actor Ed Harris told me he was off to Bulgaria to shoot his portion of the film, a historical epic revolving around escapees from a Siberian Gulag in 1940. So that film is still very much in the making and likely won’t hit theaters (if I were to make my best guess) until 2010.
Of the others, I would bet “Agora” could really hit the ground running this season if it isn’t dashed by its own ambitions. The rest…well, we’ll see.
10 responses so far
1 3-31-2009 at 3:04 pm
Robert Hamer said...
The plot synopsis of Bright Star sounds very interesting and Oscar-y, so that’s already a point in its favor. And honestly, isn’t it about time a woman won Best Director?
2 3-31-2009 at 3:40 pm
AmericanRequiem said...
Kris, is the boat that rocked gonna be taken down completely for all the potential awards you thought it might obtain?
3 3-31-2009 at 4:00 pm
Mr. Gittes said...
The Men Who Stare at Goats script had me laughing out loud. A lot. I can see why Clooney and Heslov wanted Ewan McGregor – jabs at Star Wars aplenty.
4 3-31-2009 at 4:50 pm
Kristopher Tapley said...
Requiem: I would imagine so, though I certainly would rather see the film first. Trades are hardly a barometer of quality while the UK press has always kind of had it in for Curtis. But it ain’t lookin’ good.
I don’t want to deal with all this Oscar talk right now though. It’s killing my brain. The swelling has barely gone down from last season! So if you guys don’t see an update for a number of weeks/months — I’m sure you’ll get over it.
5 3-31-2009 at 6:01 pm
Mr. Harmonica said...
No brash decisions should be made until a movie’s out.
If it were me, I would have taken down all of my Taking Woodstock predictions the moment the trailer ended.
6 3-31-2009 at 6:07 pm
Kristopher Tapley said...
I’m not obsessive, believe it or not. Oscar predictions are the furthest thing from my mind until post-Cannes.
7 3-31-2009 at 7:34 pm
Princess of Peace said...
A while ago I read that Agora was being distributed by Focus Films and had a release date of December 18th. Goat should not have a problem because it stars Mr. Clooney. I hope all the others find distributors soon.
8 3-31-2009 at 7:46 pm
Michael Rogers said...
Does Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus have a US distributor yet? Does it have a chance in any categories? Costume or maybe supporting actor?
9 3-31-2009 at 7:50 pm
Kristopher Tapley said...
Focus isn’t distributing Agora domestically, just internationally:
http://www.indiewire.com/article/cannes_08_focus_spotlights_amenabars_agora/
10 4-13-2009 at 1:51 am
Glenn said...
“The Boat That Rocked” seems to be out of the screenplay race after it’s release in the UK and Australia has resulted in it being attacked, especially the ending. Haven’t seen it personally, but know others who have and it’s just not special enough. I can’t see Hoffman making it either, not that I ever did.
“Bright Star” may very well be screening at Cannes – word has it that two Aussie titles have been selected and Campion has won there before so… – and Campion has found success with this type of film before so I don’t think it’ll have trouble finding a distributor and, if it’s any good, award success.