"Blade Runner 2049" Wins the Oscar

Congratulations to the entire visual effects team behind "Blade Runner 2049" for their Academy Award win for Best Visual Effects!

BLADE RUNNER 2049

John Nelson, Gerd Nefzer, Paul Lambert and Richard R. Hoover

Oscar Pool Ballot, 90th Academy Awards

It's time for the Awesomest Oscar Pool Ballot In The History Of Oscar Pool Ballots.

Every year I create a special ballot based on a typical Academy Awards printable ballot -- but on my ballot, each category has a different point value. The highest valued category is "Best Picture," while the mainstream films' categories are valued at two points. The non-mainstream categories (like the documentary and short film categories) are valued at one point.

This way, in a tight race for the winner of the pool, the winner most likely would not be determined by the non-mainstream films (in other words, blind guesses).  This year, I started with a ballot from InStyle, since Oscar.com didn't make a pretty, printable ballot this year. Again.

Download the awesome ballot here for the 90th Academy Awards and use it at your Oscar party.

click here for larger

And if you're wondering why Tom Cruise is on my ballot... he's been on every one of my Oscar ballots. Because he's soooooooooo cool.

Visual Effects, Oscars and the Box Office in 2017

"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" was the top earner of this year's visual effects Oscar nominees, at $1.3B global box office. 

Just as I did for 2016 films, 2015 films, 2014 films, 2013 films, 2012 films and 2011 films, I thought it would be interesting to track the average global box office grosses from this year's Academy Award nominees, per category.

 click for larger

The average global box office of Best Visual Effects Oscar nominees was $700.8B (up from $575M last year).

The five nominees for this year's visual effects earned a total global box office gross of about $3.5B (up from $2.8B last year). The monster earner was "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" at $1.3B, with "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" next up at $864M. The other behemoth Oscar nominee at the box office was "Beauty and the Beast" at $1.2B, which boosted the Art Direction and Costume Design categories.

The last five years at a glance:

Average global box office of Best Visual Effects films:
2017 (90th Academy Awards) - $701M
Top Grosser: Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 1.3B

2016 (89th Academy Awards) - $575M
Top Grosser: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, 1.0B

2015 (88th Academy Awards) - $657M
Top Grosser: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, $2B

2014 (87th Academy Awards) - $723M
Top Grosser: Guardians of the Galaxy, $774M

2013 (86th Academy Awards) - $698M
Top Grosser: Iron Man 3, $1.2B

2012 (85th Academy Awards) - $763M
Top Grosser: The Avengers, $1.5B

2011 (84th Academy Awards) - $662M
Top Grosser: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, 1.35B

I wrote this concerning the 2011 box office when I charted the box office averages for the 84th Academy Awards, and unfortunately, this still is true.

It also illustrates the sad state of the visual effects community. The average Oscar nominee for visual effects made over $662 million globally, and yet our industry has relatively little power in Hollywood.

All data from boxofficemojo.com .

The VFX Predictinator, 90th Academy Awards Edition

What is The VFX Predictinator? Start here.

Even though The Predictinator failed at predicting "Ex Machina" two years ago (probably because we're now in a post-digital era and our assumptions are no longer rock solid), the formula bounced back last year, correctly predicting "The Jungle Book" to win the visual effects Oscar.

We ran the numbers for The VFX Predictinator with the nominees for Best Visual Effects for the 90th Academy Awards, based on data for January 13, 2018. Here are the results, as promised, but without our typical annual, long-winded accompanying article.

• 5.31 points for “War for the Planet of the Apes"
• 4.72 points for "Blade Runner 2049"
• 4.34 points for "Star Wars: The Last Jedi"
• 4.19 points for "Kong: Skull Island"
• 3.63 points for "Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2"

click here for larger

APES ON TOP
The Predictinator chose "War for the Planet of the Apes" to win the visual effects Oscar, based on the classic criteria of having strong critical acclaim and the film's prominent organic character animation. It's a solid choice, and a gut-check confirms this.

THE SPOILER?
Following close behind is "Blade Runner 2049", which could upset "Apes", since it is, arguably the most 'artsy' and 'classy' choice for Academy voters. In fact, in a post-digital world, the most classy choice has been winning the visual effects Oscar more frequently ("Ex Machina", "Life of Pi" and "Gravity", for example).

AND THE REST
In third is "The Last Jedi", which earned points for its huge box office, but suffers from being a sequel. Rounding out the list are "Kong: Skull Island" and "Guardians 2", which are strong hits but will probably not resonate with Academy voters.

Basically, my fundamental position hasn't changed: we are now in a post-digital era. Exceptional visual effects are expected by audiences (and the Academy) in all films.

My "Ex Machina" post-mortem: https://t.co/O7odez9r3B

— Todd Vaziri (@tvaziri) January 22, 2018

We’ll see what happens when the 90th Academy Awards take place on March 4, 2018.

update, 3/4/2018: Nope!

update, 1/1/2019: This effort represents the last time we will run The VFX Predictinator. There are two main reasons why we are retiring the formula and this effort. One, that we are clearly living in a post-digital era; the world has changed, and the newness of digital characters is no longer shiny and exciting, which means the assumptions are no longer accurate. I wrote extensively about the post-digital era here. And two.

90th Academy Award Nominees for Visual Effects

The nominees for the 90th Academy Awards have been announced. As always, the nominees were determined by the visual effects branch of the Academy after attending a bake-off of 10 films.  The full Academy membership will vote on the winners of each category.  The awards ceremony will take place on March 4, 2018.

Here are the nominees for Achievement in Visual Effects for the 90th Academy Awards. Congratulations to everyone involved in the creation of these amazing images.

BLADE RUNNER 2049

John Nelson, Gerd Nefzer, Paul Lambert and Richard R. Hoover

This is Nelson's fourth Oscar nomination, the third for Hoover, and the first for Nefzer and Lambert.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, VOL 2

Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Jonathan Fawkner and Dan Sudick

This is Sudick's eight nomination, Williams' third nomination, and Townsend's and Fawkner's second nominations.

KONG: SKULL ISLAND

Stephen Rosenbaum, Jeff White, Scott Benza and Mike Meinardus

This is Rosenbaum and Benza's third nomination, the second nomination for White, and the first for Meinardus.

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

Ben Morris, Mike Mulholland, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corobould

This is Corobould's and Scanlan's third nominations, Morris' second, and Mulholland's first.

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES

Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, Dan Lemmon and Joel Whist

This is Letteri's tenth nomination, the fourth for Lemmon, the third for Barret, and the first for Whist.