Sony Pictures Chairman and CEO Tom Rothman says he’s planning to launch a big awards campaign for “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” including a potential shot at Best Picture.
The highest-grossing movie of all time, ‘Brand New Day’ is also well reviewed at 66/100 on Metacritic and 90% (7.6/10) on Rotten Tomatoes.
Those are good numbers, but not the kind of mid-high 80s Metacritic scores of the genre’s most acclaimed titles like “The Dark Knight” or the “Spider-Verse” films. The first ‘Spider-Verse’ film did, in fact, take home the Best Animated Feature Oscar.
That said, “Joker” is technically a comic book movie and it managed a Best Picture nomination despite only a 59/100 Metacritic score. Speaking with Deadline, Rothman says of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”:
“The Academy is meant to recognize greatness. So, to be honest, I think it’s greatness. I think it’s received wisdom. If there aren’t people thinking about it, we’re gonna do what we can just to make people think about it. I think it’s also incumbent upon studios who make these kinds of quality commercial films to get people to think about it, and here’s what I ask people when I walk around: ‘Are you telling me that there are 10 films this year that are better than this film?’”
Rothman has reportedly hired awards consultants and plans a run of screenings starting just before Thanksgiving along with multiple FYC Q&As with the filmmakers. Rothman himself plans to host screenings and tastemaker events.
Whether Rothman will get his wish is unclear. There’s a surprising number of wide release titles that are serious Best Picture contenders this year including “The Odyssey,” “You Can See Everything,” “Project Hail Mary,” “The Invite,” “Dune: Part Three,” “Wild Horse Nine” and “Obsession” along with smaller films like “Elsinore,” “Fjord,” “Club Kid”.
On awards prediction site Gold Derby, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is down at #33 – behind even the likes of “Michael,” “The Social Reckoning” and “The Sheep Detectives”.
