Film opinion: Why we love seeing Wicked and Dune: Part Two nominated for Oscars
The Oscars is an annual celebration of the best and brightest minds in the world of film.
Each year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences votes on the greatest contributions to cinema from the previous year.
Film News Blitz’s David Bason explains why it’s great to see Wicked and Dune: Part Two praised by the Academy.
Wicked gets 10 Oscars nominations
Wicked has been handed a massive 10 nominations for this year’s Oscars which include celebrating the incredible performances of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
The successful cinematic adaptation of the smash-hit musical brings the land of Oz to sunning reality on the big screen and it's no wonder that several of the creative teams behind the picture are getting recognition at the Oscars.
Wicked’s nominations go beyond acting to include nods for Makeup and Hairstyling, Costume Design, Production Design, Visual Effects, Sound, Editing and Original Score.
The Academy voters recognising Wicked’s stunning contribution to all of these cinematic components has culminated in a Best Picture nomination as well.
READ MORE: Film awards: Wicked stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande react to Oscars nominations
Sadly, the man who helped pull this all together, Jon M. Chu, hasn’t been nominated in the Best Director category, but he’ll get another opportunity next year with Wicked: For Good, which lands in cinemas this November.
Still, the 10 nominations at the Oscars rightly celebrate a joyous, magical contribution to the big screen.
Moreover, these nominations are a celebration of a film that transcended the globe to enchant worldwide audiences en masse.
Wicked was a categorical success at the worldwide box office, breaking the record for the highest-grossing movie based on a Broadway musical ever.
The musical went on to gross $717 million worldwide to become the fifth highest-grossing film of 2024.
Success with the Oscars and at the box office alike is a distinction that Wicked shares with Dune: Part Two.
Dune: Part Two - A technical marvel
Like Chu, Director Denis Villeneuve has sadly missed out on a Directing nomination at this year’s Oscars, but given his incredible filmography and gifted vision for filmmaking, his time will come.
Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two is a masterful science-fiction extravaganza concluding his adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic novel.
Enjoyed best in the largest format possible, Dune: Part Two stuns with visceral supremacy, incredible sound and exemplary visual effects.
This sentiment is shared between Film News Blitz and the Academy with Dune: Part Two nominated for Oscars in Sound, Visual Effects, Production Design, Cinematography and Best Picture.
Released on March 01, Dune: Part Two was a massive contributor to dragging audiences out of the house and back to cinemas in 2024 on a successful run at the box office.
A worldwide gross of $714 million, just three million behind Wicked makes Dune: Part Two the sixth highest-grossing film of 2024.
Why we are celebrating Wicked and Dune: Part Two’s Best Picture noms
When it comes to the Oscars Best Picture race, Wicked and Dune: Part Two are in a select club of two.
Out of the 10 Best Picture nominees, Wicked and Dune: Part Two stand apart as box office blockbusters with widespread appeal.
This is not to diminish the other eight incredible nominees, merely to point out that as is traditional for many awards films, they were smaller in terms of budget and theatrical release.
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Often, the best work comes from the independent creatives that a lucky portion of the watching world gets the pleasure of watching.
Take, for example, The Brutalist, a film so against the norm of modern cinema (it even has an interval) that director Brady Corbet was worried it wouldn’t even see the light of day.
Luckily, it has and is being celebrated for its cinematic prowess but the A24 feature, like many in the studio’s stable, is a niche product and perhaps goes without having a widespread appeal.
Why is this important?
Well, in recent years the viewing figures for the Oscars ceremony have paled in comparison to years gone by.
Oscars audiences aren’t what they used to be
According to Statista, the Oscars raked in a whopping 46.3 million viewers in 2000 and was still hitting the 40-plus million mark in 2014.
From then onwards, a steady decline in viewership began, no doubt in part thanks to a fragmented media landscape of streaming options diverting audiences from watching programmes on traditional formats.
By 2020, viewership was down to 23.6 million, an all-time low.
Then the pandemic hit and viewership plummeted even further in 2021 to 10.4 million.
The world of film has worked hard to recover from the pandemic, which contributed to delayed releases and production for future projects.
Just as things were on the path of recovery, a further setback came in the form of the writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023.
Throughout, the Oscars’ rise in viewership has yet to meet the 2020 goal, hitting 19.5 million last year.
Still, last year’s Oscars had the Barbenheimer buzz as two of the year’s biggest films featured in the Best Picture category.
Barbie, the certified biggest film of 2023 with a $1.3 billion gross and Oppenheimer, the eventual Best Picture Oscar winner, the third highest grossing film of 2023 with $975 million.
These films proved that the Oscars can be relevant to a mainstream audience, celebrate original and industry-leading voices and encourage the masses to love and cherish cinema as an artistic medium.
These are important values to uphold and Wicked and Dune: Part Two will be key to bringing mainstream audiences and hardcore cinephiles together on Oscars night.
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