From Toronto to Oscar? - Part 3

Now that we've looked at some of the films at TIFF that are seeking distribution deals or hoping to sneak up on the awards season, in this final preview it's time to focus on the big guns. For the films that have been looked at as definite Oscar contenders for some time now, the festival season is a proving grounds of sorts. Some are making their world premieres and hoping to live up to expectations, while others are looking to either continue the good buzz they already have. And for others, it's a last chance of sorts to regain lost momentum and prove themselves as legitimate contenders. The following six films represent a cross-section of those possibilites:

Anna Karenina
Director: Joe Wright

As I've written before, Anna Karenina is the kind of film that will automatically be pegged as a sure-fire Oscar contender. As an adaptation of one of the world's best-known novels, starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law, and directed by Atonement and Pride and Prejudice's Joe Wright, it had that designation since the moment it was announced. But now that it will be shown in front of audiences for the first time, and the first public reactions will go a long way to determining whether it truly is a contender or not. Wright has taken a different approach to the film, shooting it more in the style as a filmed stage play than a cinematic epic, and early reports have suggested this may turn off some audience members who were expecting a more traditional style. Anna Karenina is still likely to scoop up a number of technical Oscar nominations in areas such as Costume and Production Design, but whether the actors and film itself can do the same is still up in the air.

Argo
Director: Ben Affleck

The Ben Affleck-directed political thriller about the real-life mission to rescue six diplomates during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis will be holding its world premiere at TIFF and riding a wave of extremely positive following its first preview screenings held earlier this week at Telluride. Early reports are that Argo succeeds both from a critical and an audience-pleasing standpoint, and when you add in the film's Canadian connection (with the planned rescue involving disguising the hostages as members of a Canadian film crew), all the pieces are in place for Argo to potentially emerge as one of the festival's biggest hits, and solidify its spot as a serious Oscar contender for both Best Picture and Best Director.

The Master
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Paul Thomas Anderson's follow-up to There Will be Blood, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as a religious leader based of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and Joaquin Phoenix as the drifter he takes in, has been popping up in preview screenings over the U.S. for the past month. Anderson has traditionally shunned the glamor of the Toronto and Venice festivals, but with the powerhouse Weinstein Company handling distribution for the film, he will be going the festival route this time around. Given Anderson's reputation as a filmmaker, The Master has been projected as a potential masterpiece all year long, so a host of expectations are riding on its festival premieres. The very early word has said that the film focuses on some of the same themes about obsession and power that There Will Be Blood did, which may hurt or help its Oscar chances. If it clicks with festival audiences and critics, it will be seen as a triumphant follow-up to that film, but if it doesn't live up to expectations, it might simply be seen as retracing ground that Anderson has already mapped out.

On the Road
Director: Walter A. Salles

The long-gestating adaptation of Jack Kerouac's book showed for the first time at the Cannes film festival in May, but after the negative reaction it received there, Focus Features and director Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) may have wished they'd held it off longer. On the Road went back to the editing room following its premiere, and the version that will be shown in Toronto has been promised to be "dramatically different" from its earlier iteration.  Poor initial reviews at festivals aren't always the kiss of death to Oscar hopefuls (The Ides of March rebounded from initial mediocre reviews last year for example) but Toronto will likely be the last opportunity for On the Road to reverse the negative buzz it's been building since its first showings.

The Sessions
Director: Ben Lewin

Out of all the Oscar contenders mentioned thus far, The Sessions has likely got the least to worry about.  Starring John Hawkes (an Oscar-nominee for Winter's Bone) as a paralyzed middle-aged man who hires a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt) to lose his virginity, the film premiered way back in January at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award, and proceeded to also play at Berlin and Cannes. As a known quantity that's already a heavy contender in both the Actor and Supporting Actress categories, Focus Features is simply using the fall festival season as a way to maintain The Sessions' momentum en route to its theatrical release this winter, a must given that the film lacks the star power and more epic scale that many of its competitors have.


Silver Linings Playbook
Director: David O. Russell

In contrast to an already-familiar film like The Sessions, Silver Linings Playbook, a comedy-drama starring Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, and Jennifer Lawrence, is likely one of the festival's biggest unknowns. Starring Cooper as a former teacher who is released from a brief stint in an institution and forced to move back in with his parents, David O. Russell's follow-up to his Oscar nomination for The Fighter will be making its first showing of any kind at its Gala Premiere in Toronto, unlike films such as Argo and Anna Karenina that have given us at least an idea of what to expect thanks to preview screenings. It's a ploy that could work to the film's advantage, as without expectations as high as the aforementioned movies it will be seen as a "Festival breakout" should early reaction be positive. On the other hand, The Weinstein Company may have chosen to hold back any early previews due to uncertainty about Silver Linings' reception, not wanting to let any negative buzz about the film leak out early. But as goes for all the other films mentioned thus far, we won't know for sure until we see them.

From Toronto to Oscar? - Part 2

By landing a distribution deal during festival season, films like Robert Redford's
The Company You Keep have boosted their awards chances significantly.

The Toronto, Venice, and New York film festivals in the fall season are usually seen as the "last chance" for films without theatrical distribution deals to find a suitor in time for the end-of-year awards season. While early Oscar favorites like The Master and Argo, as well as other wide releases like the police drama End of Watch and 3-D animated Hotel Transylvania have their release dates already scheduled and are using the festivals to build buzz, many other films are playing the festival circuit in the hopes of being acquired by distribution companies like Warner Bros., The Weinstein Company, or Fox Searchlight, to name a few of the largest. If a film's initial screenings are popular enough, these distribution deals can turn into all-out bidding wars worth millions of dollars, as has happened with films like The Wrestler and Black Swan in recent years, both of which also led to multiple Oscar nominations.

This year though, a number of the highest-profile "free agent" films have already found their distributors in the weeks just before festival season begins. This week, Sony Picture Classics announced that it had acquired the Robert Redford political thriller The Company You Keep, starring Redford and Shia LeBeouf and set for a Gala premiere in Toronto, as well as Rahmin Bahrani's At Any Price, a drama centered around car racing with Zac Efron and Dennis Quaid. These join other newly acquired films set to play as TIFF, including Derek Cianfrance's The Place Beyond the Pines, starring Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, Love is All You Need, directed by the Oscar-winning Susanne Bier, and The Impossible and Quartet, which I spoke of in my previous column. But even with those prominent acquisitions, there are still dozens of movies large and small searching for buyers this season, and I'll focus on a few of the more prominent ones:


Great Expectations
Director: Mike Newell

With an enormous cast including Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane, Sally Hawkins, and Jeremy Irvine, Mike Newell's (Four Weddings and a Funeral) Dickens adaptation already has its release lined up in the UK, but is still seeking distribution in North America. It's a bit of a unique case as a film as prominent as this would usually have that lined up, but with this year's more high-profile adaptation of Anna Karenina already backed by Focus Features and set for a December release date and big awards push, distributors are likely anxious to commit to Expectations for a 2012 release. A North American audience that may have already gotten it's fill of literary classics with Karenina (as well as the upcoming Les Miserables musical) will probably be hesitant to commit dollars to a third such film. If Great Expectations turns out to be a hit with audiences at early screenings, though, (and especially if the early reaction to Anna Karenina's screenings are lukewarm), it might be one of the earliest buys at the festival.

Imogene
Directors: Robert Pulcini & Shari Springer-Berman 

Saturday Night Live alumni Kristen Wiig hit the big time when she starred in and co-wrote Bridesmaids last year, and has followed that up by teaming with American Splendor directors Pulcini and Springer-Berman in this comedy about a once destined-for-greatness playwright (Wiig) who is remanded to the custody of her overbearing mother (Annette Bening) following a faked suicide attempt. Bening has been gathering buzz for a possible Supporting Actress nomination, as has Wiig for Lead Actress to a lesser degree, but distributors are waiting to see how the film plays at festivals before buying in here. Imogene is not a comedy in the loud, raunchy sense that Bridesmaids was, so any prospective buyers will likely want to make sure that audiences actually find the film funny before they commit to it. It could also be acquired and then held off to an early 2013 release date if studios determine that there's not likely to be any awards potential, in which case more money might be made with a wide release in a less crowded season.

Twice Born
Director: Sergio Castellinito

Italian director Sergio Castellinito's romance between an Italian woman (Penelope Cruz) and American photographer (Emile Hirsch), is set against the backdrop of the Bosnian Wars of the 1990's. It will be fighting an uphill battle to get distribution in North America due to its only partially being in English, but Cruz has already managed to get an Oscar nomination for an entirely foreign role with Volver, and with Hirsch's character providing an English-speaking perspective, this is the sort of film that could be an underdog player at the Oscars if it gets enough good buzz during the festival season. However, although Castellinito helmed the highly-praised Don't Move several years ago, he is not on the level of someone like Pedro Almodovar, who has directed most of Cruz's foreign-language films (including Volver) and who is highly regarded enough that his movies can acquire North American distribution fairly easily. When it comes to foreign films from all but the biggest names out there, distributors will take a wait-and-see approach.

What Maisie Knew
Directors: Scott McGeehee & David Siegel

What Maisie Knew is an adaptation of the 1897 Henry James novel set through the eyes of a young girl named Maisie (one of the first to frankly tackle the subjects of divorce and family dysfunction), updated and set in modern-day New York. Most of the early attention has been focused on Julianne Moore's portrayal of Maisie's mother, because as a four-time Oscar nominee Moore will attract notice for nearly every role she plays. Of course, that's no guarantee of a pickup (Chloe, for example, starring Moore alongside Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried, came and went at the 2009 festival with nary a sound), but alongside the film's recently-revealed trailer, it will be enough to cause interest. Mostly though, it's likely too much of an unknown quality at the time to risk investing in without seeing how it plays in front of an audience. The film finished shooting back in early 2012 but chose to skip Cannes and the other summer festivals, and had been rumoured to be looking at a 2013 premiere until being a late announcement as a Gala presentation at TIFF.


All four of these films feature well-known actors, of course, and will get released into theaters at some point regardless of their festival performance. But to illustrate the importance of getting the deal done as soon as possible, all you need to do is look at the performances of the films that didn't. As one example, two years ago, Robert Redford's The Conspiracy, a drama surrounding the aftermath of the Lincoln assassination was given a high-profile gala premiere in the festival's first weekend, but couldn't pick up a distribution deal, leaving it with the stigma of being left at the altar, so to speak. Lionsgate finally acquired the film, but it was only given a brief theatrical run in the spring of 2011 and was quickly forgotten about. With those memories in mind, Redford and his production company will undoubtedly be grateful to have grabbed such a deal early on this time around, and most every other film will be hoping to follow suit.

From Toronto to Oscar? - Part 1

The schedule for this year's Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has been fully released and, as always, it features several highly hyped films hoping to use the festival season as a launching pad to compete for the Oscars and other year-end awards; from the new adaptations of Anna Karenina and Great Expectations, to the latest films from celebrated auteurs Terrence Malick (To the Wonder) and Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master).  There are also a number of features making their official World or North American debuts that haven't received quite as much hype yet, but which could, with a successful bow in Toronto, leapfrog their way right into awards contention. I'll be looking at some of these films first, as the critical and audience reactions from these premieres may be the most crucial ones of the whole festival, turning these five films from pretenders into contenders.

Cloud Atlas

Directors: Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer

In terms of star power, Cloud Atlas might be one of the biggest films at the festival, but a far as awards chances go, it might also be this year's ultimate boom-or-bust example. Directed by the Wachowski siblings (no longer brothers) of The Matrix fame, as well as Run Lola Run director Tom Tykwer, Cloud Atlas boasts a cast including Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, and Hugh Grant, each playing multiple roles in a series of six vignettes that flash back and forth through different time periods and dimensions ranging from the prehistoric to the post-apocalyptic. Based on themes of interconnectedness and chaos theory (how seemingly small choices and actions can shape things far into the future), Cloud Atlas could be seen as a brilliant accomplishment just as likely as it could be a jumbled, incoherent mess of a film. Although the prevailing opinion towards a film like this might be that it's likely just too strange and out-there for the Academy, The Tree of Life showed just last year that such a thing is certainly possible.

The Impossible

Director: Juan Antonio Bayona

Fans of the Spanish director's 2007 gothic thriller The Orphanage have been waiting a while now for the director's next project. Now, after a prolonged production period, Bayona's English-language debut starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts will be making its world premiere at the festival. One of the first mainstream films to focus on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that claimed over 200,000 lives, The Impossible was under the awards radar for some time but has now started making waves (pardon the pun) since Summit Entertainment acquired distribution rights earlier this month and positioned it for a late December release. Summit famously led The Hurt Locker to an upset Best Picture win in 2009, and early screenings have similarly described The Impossible as a visceral, gripping film, while also praising both McGregor's and Watts' performances as parents separated during the disaster, looking to track down their three children and each other. 

Quartet

Director: Dustin Hoffman

In the same vein as The Impossible, the 75-year-old Hoffman's directorial debut in Quartet has taken a recent leap in visibility thanks to its acquisition for a potential late-season awards push, this time by the Weinstein Company. Hoffman's film about a group of elderly opera singers reuniting in a retirement home may be too small in scope to make a push for Best Picture, but featuring an esteemed British cast including Dame Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Billy Connolly, and Pauline Collins, it's already being talked about as having real potential for one or more acting nods, especially in the supporting categories. The Weinsteins already have two big potential Oscar players at TIFF this year The Master and The Silver Linings Playbook, as well as Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained set for release later this year, but Quartet has the definite possibility of joining those films should it get off to a good start at the festival.

Seven Psychopaths

Director: Martin McDonough

It's not very often that you talk about a film in the "Midnight Madness" program as being an Oscar contender (other selections this year include Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem and Dredd 3D, based on the obscure comic book anithero, for example). But writer/director Martin McDonough scored an unexpected nomination for his screenplay with In Bruges, and has reteamed with star Colin Farrell in an offbeat black comedy about a struggling screenwriter who gets involved in kidnapping gone wrong. McDonough's own writing is of course his biggest strength, and as two of the titular psychopaths, Woody Harrelson and Christopher Walken are both the types of actors who can take a juicy supporting part and turn it into something that gets awards attention. Beyond that, with so many of the biggest Oscar players this year being adaptations, Seven Psychopaths could also score a second Original Screenplay nomination for its auteur if it hits the right notes.

Song for Marion

Director: Paul Andrew Williams

Being chosen as the Closing Night Gala at TIFF is often an unenviable position for a film. It sounds prestigious at first, but in reality, by the time the second weekend comes around, much of the press has departed and the festival's initial enthusiasm has been replaced by a general feeling of 'let's just get this over with'. So it's not the ideal spot for a big Hollywood premiere riding a lot of hype, but it could be a springboard for a film like Song for Marion, focused at an older audience, to build towards potential nominations for stars Terrence Stamp and Vanessa Redgrave. Stamp's performance as a grumpy retiree who must take the place of his terminally ill wife (Redgrave) in a senior's choir has been especially praised in early screenings, and in the less crowded Supporting Actress category, a legendary performer like Redgrave is always a threat for a nomination. Like the similar Quartet, Song for Marion's theme surrounding elderly musicians isn't usually the kind of thing you see nominated in the Best Picture category, but could certainly see acting noms for. 

Franchises are Being Bourne Again

Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross -
Jason Bourne is not actually in The Bourne Legacy, but will that matter?

How far can you ride a successful franchise in Hollywood before the wheels fall off? With this weekend's release of The Bourne Legacy, and the recent announcement that The Hobbit may be released as a trilogy instead of just two films, we're seeing more and more examples of movie franchises having their natural runs extended by any way possible. In the case of The Hobbit, a relatively brief book will now be stretched out over three separate films. In the case of The Bourne Legacy, a trilogy of films centring around one character has been spun off into a new storyline with new characters only tangentially related to the original films. It remains to be seen whether these new films will succeed, but recent history shows that given the costs of producing blockbusters day, it's definitely safer to extend an existing series than risk losing everything on a new one.

It's no secret that Hollywood has become franchise-dependent, and with the cost of the average blockbuster increasing each year, they have good reason to be. If a studio is going to invest $100 or $200 million into a summer film, basing it on a popular book series, comic, or video game guarantees a built-in fanbase and potential mass audience for the movie. The more popular the franchise or its characters is, the less risk there is that the studio will lose money.

Taylor Kirsch as John Carter -
The wrong franchise can harm an actor's career, but they aren't the only ones.

Backing the wrong franchise can be devastating for a studio. Take Disney's much-hyped John Carter, for example. Released in theaters this March, Carter had a production budget of $250 million and an additional $100 million advertising budget, but was a disaster at the box office, grossing only $73 million in North America and another $120 million overseas. The repercussions of that $160 million loss went beyond simple monetary figures for Disney. The company stock took a large loss, resulting in  lowered forecasts for upcoming quarters. Walt Disney Studios, responsible for Disney films, had its operating budget slashed, and the upcoming Lone Ranger film with Johnny Depp had to be rewritten to accomodate this lower budget. Finally, it led to the resignation of Disney Studios head Rick Ross, as even though the movie had already been in production when he arrived, he took the blame for not recognizing in advance that John Carter was the wrong franchise to commit $350 million dollars to and attempting to reel in the cost of the film before it got out of control. And John Carter certainly isn't alone in having flopped as a potential franchise. Just over the past year, we've seen films like Battleship,  Dark Shadows, Conan the Barbarian, and Green Lantern debut to poor results, and any plans for sequels were immediately shelved as the studios tried to recoup their losses.

Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins -
But if you've got a franchise that's a sure thing, why would you want to stop?

Looking at the end result of a flop like John Carter, we can also see the flip side of the equation: that when a studio has found a successful franchise, it's only logical that they will try to ride that wave as long as possible. In the case of Harry Potter, for example, Warner Bros. split the final book into two movies instead of one and grossed an extra billion dollars as a result. Lionsgate has followed step with the Twilight films, with Breaking Dawn - Part 2 coming out later this year. And although it has not yet been announced, I would be very surprised if The Hunger Games does not follow suit with its upcoming sequels. So by splitting into three films instead of two, The Hobbit is clearly trying to follow this precedent.

The Bourne Legacy is in a bit of a different situation, especially since as a franchise Jason Bourne isn't quite on the level of Batman or Harry Potter. As well, early reviews suggest that the film isn't up to the same level of quality as the previous ones in the franchise. And recent history shows that franchise reboots and spinoffs can lead to somewhat diminishing returns at the box office. The Amazing Spider-Man rebooted the Spider-Man franchise earlier this summer, and while it made a healthy profit and grossed $250 million in North America, the other Spider-Man films all finished with at least $330 million.

But even though Spider-Man didn't reach the level of its predecessors, the fact that it was successful nonetheless bodes well for The Bourne Legacy's chances, and helps to show why franchises like it continue to endure. Even when a film is universally considered to be terrible, the built-in fanbase of a successful franchise can mean the difference between a minor success (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, for example, part of an existing franchise, grossed $180 million in North America and another $180 million overseas) and an outright bomb (Green Lantern, as a new franchise attempt with similarly poor reviews, only managed $100 million in North America and $120 million overseas while costing almost twice as much as Wolverine did). So it's really no wonder why we see so many attempts to keep franchises going, even when quality-wise they may be better served being put to rest. And it's a trend I see continuing so long as the cost of the average Hollywood blockbuster remains what it is.