“The Revenant”, an ambitious pioneer-era saga, led with 12 nominations, including best picture, best actor for Leonardo DiCaprio and best director for Mexico’s Alejandro Inarritu, who won the top Oscar a year ago for the dark showbiz comedy “Birdman”.
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Miller coaxed the great Australian cinematographer John Seale out of retirement to film Fury Road and Seale was rewarded with a fifth Oscar nomination of his career.
The studios’ strong showing in the Oscar race reflects a record year at the box office, with ticket sales surpassing $11 billion in the US and Canada.
Smaller movies received their share of recognition as well, of course. First-time nominee Hardy similarly has huge public appeal and it doesn’t hurt that he’s also the star of Mad Max: Fury Road, runner-up to The Revenant for most Oscar chances.
The red carpet and pomp and ceremony of the 88th Academy Awards on February 28 will be a world away from the brutally hot, and subzero conditions they faced shooting the film in the desert in Namibia.
But any group that can embrace movies about a bear-fighting vengeance seeker, an apocalyptic anti-hero and a disco-hating stranded astronaut is certainly one that’s open to a wide range of entertainment options. The film did earn a screenplay nomination.
Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated this year for actor in a leading role. Ridley Scott’s sci-fi epic “The Martian” landed 7 nominations, including best picture, but no best director nod for Scott.
For the second year in a row, every single acting nominee for the Academy Awards is white (director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu adds some diversity to the mix for his nominations linked to The Revenant) – and even Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs couldn’t hide her frustration.
Not only does The Revenant appear to have eliminated all suspense in the 2016 Best Picture Oscar predictions, the film also appears to have closed the book on the Best Actor category as well.
But George Miller’s post-apocalyptic sequel “Mad Max: Fury Road” followed with 10 nominations, including best picture and best director for Miller.
The actors who did make the Oscars cut included longtime industry stalwarts and relative newcomers. “Seeing Lenny’s [director Lenny Abrahamson’s] nomination is a really big surprise and so exciting and well deserved”.
Alicia Vikander was another first-time nominee, for supporting actress for the drama “The Danish Girl”.
“It was thrilling”, said McKay, who made a pre-dawn party to watch the nominations.
Meanwhile, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” got love in the technical categories with nominations for film editing, sound editing, sound mixing, visual effects and original score but was overlooked for best picture.
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The Oscars were never far from the lips of the cast, especially whether it could be sixth time lucky for DiCaprio who picked up the best actor award at the Golden Globes on Sunday.
