The Week of Precursors has begun. Two today, two tomorrow (ASC, CAS), one Wednesday (CDG), four Thursday (big day Thursday. PGA, DGA, WGA, ACE). And then we’ve got everything outside of BAFTA, which announces nominations next Thursday. We’re in the thick of it now, folks.
Today is the Art Directors Guild and MPSE, the sound editors. This is our first sound precursor from anywhere, as CAS only announces tomorrow and the only other help we get besides the guilds is BAFTA. And for Production Design, we already have BFCA and the new arrival of the Set Designers Society. So after this, BAFTA is just gonna clean everything up for us there.
So yeah, let’s just get into it.
We’ll start with ADG, a category in which I could probably off-handedly tell you four of the nominees without even actually piecing together precursors.
Period Film
The French Dispatch
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story
Fantasy Film
Cruella
Dune
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
The Green Knight
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Contemporary Film
Candyman
Don’t Look Up
In the Heights
The Lost Daughter
No Time to Die
So yeah, I think we can toss out Contemporary as per usual. Unless one of them gets BAFTA nominated, I don’t see any of those happening. Fantasy — Dune and Cruella are fixing to be the only two that get precursors, and the entire Period category looks to be right in the thick of things. Mostly what’s interesting there is — no Belfast, no Power of the Dog. BAFTA is gonna be real helpful in figuring out where those last few spots are gonna go. Because at this point, I don’t see how anyone assumes French Dispatch, West Side Story, Dune and probably Nightmare Alley don’t get nominated. So now you’ve got both those other films, Licorice Pizza, Cruella, Tragedy of Macbeth… it’s a loaded set of choices this year and it could go any number of ways. The two most important ones here are the two major Picture nominees, Belfast and Power of the Dog. Either or both hitting BAFTA is extremely more helpful to us than them not hitting. Because if they don’t, you’re still having to factor them in just because of their stature and it becomes more agonizing. A nomination makes it easier to just add them in (one or both). So we’ll see.
Right now, my gut is telling me this is the most likely category:
Dune
The French Dispatch
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
And then Belfast and Tragedy of Macbeth are the two most likely alternates. Though Licorice Pizza, with a BAFTA nomination, then has his everything you’d want it to hit as well. So that’s there. And Cruella also is right there. BAFTA is the key to just about everything with this category right now. The only curves they could throw us are if they nominate Being the Ricardos, Cyrano, House of Gucci, The Last Duel or even (somehow) No Time to Die. Past that (more than one of those would be chaos), I’m sure they’ll point the way for us pretty easily.
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And now MPSE.
They have three major categories: SFX+Foley (which is the ‘major’ one), Dialogue+ADR, and then Music.
We already have a Sound shortlist (and remember, just one category now), so we’re really only looking at these ten films and how they do here:
Belfast
Dune
Last Night in Soho
The Matrix Resurrections
No Time to Die
The Power of the Dog
A Quiet Place Part II
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Tick… Tick… Boom!
West Side Story
Easy way to look at this: three nominations is great, two nominations is solid, one nomination is okay depending on the circumstances, and if it gets shut out… major red flag. But considering the branch is the one who makes the shortlist, I’d be real surprised to see something get shut out.
Effects + Foley
Belfast
Dune
The Matrix Resurrections
Nightmare Alley
No Time to Die
A Quiet Place Part II
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Dialogue + ADR
Dune
Last Night in Soho
The Matrix Resurrections
Nightmare Alley
No Time to Die
The Power of the Dog
A Quiet Place Part II
The Tragedy of Macbeth
Music
Dune
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
In the Heights
The Matrix Resurrections
Nightmare Alley
A Quiet Place Part II
Tick… Tick… Boom!
West Side Story
So yeah, all ten hit something. Dune, Matrix and A Quiet Place got 3 nominations, No Time to Die got 2 nominations and everything else got 1 nomination. Also of note… Nightmare Alley… 3 nominations and no shortlist. That must have just missed, because you don’t see that all that often.
BAFTA is gonna tell the tale here. CAS should also help us narrow down tomorrow, since they nominate only five. But BAFTA is the real important one. Normally you skew toward the ‘louder’ films here and the Best Picture frontrunners. But in a singular category, I think it’s gonna come down to where the precursors land and what makes the most sense. I initially figured they might be done with the Quiet Place films, but it hitting all three categories here tells me maybe not. The first one hit all three, also got CAS and was nominated at BAFTA, so if this one follows suit, I can’t imagine not guessing it at that point.
I’m gonna stay measured at this point, so currently (and this will for sure change tomorrow once I see what CAS does) this is what I’m thinking in this category:
Best Sound
Belfast
Dune
The Matrix Resurrections
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
First Alternate: A Quiet Place Part II
Dark Horse: No Time to Die
Surprise: Last Night in Soho, Tick… Tick… Boom!
Shocker: Spider-Man: No Way Home
I don’t see Spider-Man as a legitimate contender here. Outside of Black Panther, which was its own thing, Marvel never really gets on Sound. Star Wars and Middle Earth make it on Sound. Not Marvel. You know what other Marvel movie got on for Sound? Iron Man. The first one. And it was just Editing and not Mixing. Until I see it hit CAS (and even then, probably), it’s just a red herring to me. Tick Tick Boom… if there were still two categories maybe I could see it hitting in Mixing, but it feels unlikely unless they’re gonna rally around it in a major way for Picture. Last Night in Soho… gotta see it hit BAFTA and/or CAS first. It’s too slight a movie to assume that Edgar Wright is now on the Sound ‘list’ with people like Michael Bay, David Fincher, Peter Berg and Clint Eastwood. I’m not ruling it out, but I don’t see it happening currently. And No Time to Die… Skyfall got nominated in both Sound categories (and won one), so I see no reason why this couldn’t make it. But Skyfall you saw on Best Picture lists, and you see Bardem getting in the Supporting Actor conversation. That ascended from ‘Bond film’ to ‘legitimate contender they’re taking seriously’. I’m not sure anyone outside of BAFTA is gonna take this one all that seriously. But honestly, if it’s gonna get on anywhere except Song, Sound makes the most sense. So of course it’s a major contender. You just gotta wait and see how the other precursors shake out.
And yeah, I talked about A Quiet Place already. I just wanna see the other ones nominate it before I go there. I’m gonna err on the side of the two major Picture nominees, since those have historically always made it on Sound more than other stuff. I’m also not married to The Matrix in the final category if it doesn’t hit CAS or BAFTA. I’d much rather have something like Belfast with one MPSE award and a BAFTA nomination than The Matrix with 3 MPSE noms and nothing else (or even with a CAS nom, potentially). It’s all relative though. Each film and set of precursors is a series of moving parts and you just gotta wait and see which combination feels right. At this point, Dune and West Side Story are the only two films I’m considering locks, and past that it’s gonna depend on where the rest go.
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