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The Oscars’ ties to the commercial side of Hollywood have long been tenuous, with blockbusters rarely tying a best picture nominee. But a significant segment of the filmmaking profession is increasingly upset that they feel they are not being honored for their valuable contributions to the art and business of cinema.
“I don’t think there’s a single good case against stunt professionals at the Oscars,” director Chad Stahelski said. Tell pack. His action flick “John Wick: Chapter 4” has crossed $270 million worldwide, making it Hollywood’s highest-grossing R-rated film since Sony’s pre-pandemic “Bad Boys For Life.”
Even the lights and cameras are Academy-approved. So where are the action awards? That’s a question increasingly asked by those behind the scenes of cinematic stunts.
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If ever there was a year to enact the best actions, 2023 might be it. In addition to “John Wick 4”, there are Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1”, Universal’s “Speed X” and Disney’s “Indiana Jones and the Wheel of Fortune”. Proponents of the Best Action Movie award say the films will make their work harder to ignore for an industry that has been kept commercially alive by a plethora of stunt action-adventure films.
“You can hardly believe it doesn’t exist,” screenwriter Zack Stentz (X-Men: First Class, Thor) told TheWrap. “It’s so simple.”
missing in best action
Action-packed movies of course win Oscars, like recent Best Picture winner “Everything at the Same Time.” That A24 smash star Michelle Yeoh and Ka Fai — who also won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor — did most of their own stunts.
“We are as much a part of capturing the hearts and minds of the audience as any other artist involved in the process,” said the stunt rider turned motocross champion Zandalar Kennedy.
“It feels like action movies are in a place where you have a real action director,” said journalist Brandon Streussnig, who teamed up with film critic Bilge Elbiri to create this year’s exhaustive stunt award For vultures. “A director like Stahelski or an actor-producer like Tom Cruise has been given full freedom to produce stunning stunt work of the highest level.”
Advocates want more direct recognition for the work of all eye-catching, jaw-dropping stunts, whether stars are involved in performing them or not.
“Knowing that every department in a shoot has the potential to be rewarded by peers in the industry, it really hurts to wrap production,” says Streussnig.
little time for change
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently established A new production and technology branch that grants membership in a broad range of stunt-related categories, including stunt coordinators, motion directors and visual effects production leads. These workers were previously ordinary members of the Academy. (The fact that a new branch elects only one trustee to the college’s board of trustees, while the other 17 branches elect three trustees, does not mean it has equal status.)
The existence of an affiliate does not correspond to the creation of a new award category, although members of an affiliate will usually vote on specialized awards (if they exist). Moreover, time is running out.
The Academy Council meets at the end of April to conduct an annual review of the Academy Rules. Beyond that, the next and final chance to attend the 96th Academy Awards will be in August, when a newly elected board of directors will meet, including a single trustee for the new branch. That means the stunt hall has a narrow window to make a point. The college did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Oscar’s longest award program will go to…
Industry insiders and other experts told TheWrap that the debate against the new category is less about stunts than about the Oscars. First, the academy didn’t want a long program to run much longer. A new award also inevitably adds pressure to other categories, such as best casting.
Some circles worry that the existence of a best action category could prompt live stunt work to become increasingly dangerous as ambitious genres drive the award. Streussnig said several filmmakers expressed this concern when he approached them about Vulture’s plans to award film stunts.
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Stunt experts point out that the Screen Actors Guild Awards have honored stunt performances in television and film for 15 years in a row, and there has been no increase in on-set accidents.
There is also a lack of clarity about who should receive an award for a given stunt. “Would you nominate someone who does a stunt, like a high jumper?” Stahelski asked. “Is it about gags, sequence, or creativity?”
Kennedy believes that, like other awards, the award is most likely to go to department heads. But the complexity of the stunt work remains in question. Unless a very specific sequence is being considered, is the trophy awarded to the person in charge of the vehicle sequence, the person in charge of the fight choreography, or the person considered responsible for a specific stunt or fight sequence? However, Streussnig and others believe that experienced professionals can address this issue.
Boost Oscar ratings?
Like other linear broadcasts, the audience for the Academy Awards is shrinking, from 40 million in 2010 to 18.8 million In 2023. The length of the Oscars is a perennial criticism of why more people don’t watch it. Stentz thinks the stunt category might increase audience interest: “No one gets up to go to the bathroom when they’re doing five of the best stunts of the year.”
There’s been a lot of debate about whether nominating hit movies will boost Oscar ratings. The 1998 TV show ran for 249 minutes and attracted 55.2 million viewers, the second-largest audience ever for the show, with Titanic winning Best Picture. The stunt category would allow the show to acknowledge blockbusters “in a non-patronizing way,” Stentz said.
You don’t need a $200 million budget to produce jaw-dropping action sequences: If there was an action category, “Ubiquitous” could have been added to the Oscars. Or the Oscar might go to Top Gun: Maverick or Avatar: The Way of Water. All three were critically acclaimed blockbusters that ended up being nominated in part for best picture for their action sequences.
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Art or business?
Where the debate among stunt advocates gets muddled is whether award recognition for their work is about art or business. In the end, like so many parts of the film industry, it’s a little bit of both.
“We tackle the most complex problem,” Kennedy declared, “figuring out how to make a scene emotional, exciting, shocking and safe without revealing that the cast is doubling down.”
Still, given that the Oscars’ new production arm has only one person’s representation on the Academy’s board of directors, going to the Oscars this year may be too complex a matter to resolve unless advocates can make a convincing argument that the stunt awards will promote Development for all – broadcast ratings that matter.
In the meantime, stunt pros will have to settle for the SAG Stunt Ensemble category, or a less formal nod like Vulture’s awards.
Kennedy doesn’t believe the Academy will change its tune “unless there are consequences for not doing so.” Until then, she said, stunt professionals “will still take their money and do our job and entertain moviegoers.”
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