Today’s a big day for the box office, with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever barreling in for a guaranteed number one debut—bare minimum—and a global opening-weekend haul in the nine-figure range. The latest MCU entry has huge expectations attached to it, unlike what most any other film has to deal with—paying proper tribute to late star Chadwick Boseman, living up to the remarkable promise of the previous film, setting up a few spin-off stories, maybe saving the box office along the way—and you feel that weight, for good and for ill, in this sequel.
I’m David Canfield, and I can’t help but watch what happens this weekend through an awards lens. It’s why we’re here, right? The first Black Panther became an Oscars phenomenon on the strength of its critical and commercial success; I expect this sequel to continue that up to a point, with Ruth E. Carter’s costumes, the production design, and music and sound all undeniably brilliant. I suspect the film will have a tough time cracking best picture again, though. Wakanda Forever’s reviews are quite mixed—at 67 on Metacritic as of my writing, it’s less in the range of the original Black Panther or of Avengers: Endgame (another MCU film that had best-pic aspirations), and more in the realm of Black Widow or Shang-Chi. Granted, this is partly a product of high expectations, but also of critics—and no doubt, when the time comes, higher-brow Academy members—reacting to a movie trying to do an awful lot within a nearly three-hour spectacle.
If the box office gross is huge, though, don’t count it out. Which leads to a larger conversation I had with my colleagues on this week’s Little Gold Men—just how capital-B Big will the Oscars go this year? I’d argue we often overestimate the extent to which the Academy actually cares about highlighting box office successes—remember when they nominated Drive My Car instead of House of Gucci?—but this year, there are several blockbusters to keep a close eye on. It’s hard to imagine Top Gun: Maverick not making the lineup, based purely on how many industry folks have personally told me it’s their favorite movie of the year. (Okay, and the fact that it kind of saved American theatrical movies too.) And Avatar: The Way of Water is still lurking, waiting to rise (or, you know, be seen). Who are we to dismiss the almighty James Cameron?
It doesn’t end there. Warner Bros. has gotten Elvis right back on the campaign trail, seeing the Austin Butler vehicle as an all-category play (recall Bohemian Rhapsody, and underestimate this beloved musical at your own peril), and Paramount is also going wide with its release of Babylon, the old Hollywood epic from Damien Chazelle starring Margot Robbie and a strong supporting cast. Big box office hauls are fueling the campaigns for A24’s indie-that-could Everything Everywhere All at Once and Sony’s historical-action phenomenon The Woman King. Again, this is the prickly Academy we’re talking about; it’s not like these commercial-leaning titles will crowd out the Társ and Women Talkings and Banshees of Inisherins of the season. But scale still means something in Hollywood, and getting back to an earned balance of big and small, duking it out for the industry’s top honors, could be the healthiest sign of movies’ comeback yet.
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