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Oscars…

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Good morning: In today’s edition of The Industry, we look at:

Oppenheimer’s reign, Emma Stone’s joy, Cord Jefferson’s indie math, Xena Warrior Princess sells at SXSW, and honey.

Let’s go!

OSCAR WINNERS

Best Picture

Best Actor

Best Actress

Best Supporting Actor

  • Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer

Best Supporting Actress

Best Director

  • Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

Best Original Screenplay

Best Adapted Screenplay

Best International Feature

Best Animated Feature

Best Documentary Feature

Best Cinematography

Best Production Design

Oppenheimer captured the most wins with 7 Academy Awards. Poor Things won 4.

Biggest upsets of the night:

  • Emma Stone’s win for Best Actress (beating out Lily Gladstone)
  • American Fiction’s win for Best Adapted Screenplay (beating out Oppenheimer and Poor Things)

Wes Anderson won his first Oscar: Best Live Action Short Film for ​The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar​. This was also Netflix’s only win of the night out of 19 nominations.

Check out the full list of winners ​here​.

Notable Quotes:

Justine Triet (Best Original Screenplay):

​”It will help me through my mid-life crisis.”

Da’vine Joy Randolph (Best Supporting Actress, The Holdovers):

“I didn’t think I was supposed to be doing this as a career…for so long, I’ve always wanted to be different. And now I realize I just need to be myself. And I thank you, I thank people for seeing me. Ron Van Lieu [Yale School of Drama], I’ll thank you when I was the only black girl in that class. When you saw me and you told me ‘I was enough’ and when I told you ‘I don’t see myself’, you said ‘that’s fine’. We’re going to forge our own path. You’re going to lay a trail for yourself. I’m so grateful to all the women who have been by my side…”

Cord Jefferson:

“I understand that this is a risk-averse industry, I get it, but if $200 million movies are also a risk, you know and and it doesn’t always work out, but you take the risk anyway. And instead of making one $200 million movie, try making 20 $10 million movies or 50 $4 million movies… I promise you the next Martin Scorsese, the next Greta’s out here…”

For More:

Relive “I’m Just Ken.” Ryan Gosling brought the house down. ​Clip​.

The John Cena streaker bit was just marvelous. ​Clip​.

The dinosaurs aren’t real. Spielberg has the nudes. ​Clip​.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

Last year’s All Quiet on the Western Front was emotionally destabilizing. This German anti-war film picked up four Academy Awards:

  • Best International Feature
  • Best Cinematography
  • Best Production Design
  • Best Sound

Listen to a ​ten-second snippet​ of the seismic, haunting score.

The director, Edward Berger, has lined up his new film ​Conclave​. The film’s synopsis reads:

Cardinal Lomeli oversees the group of Cardinals responsible for selecting a new Church leader while trying to uncover a secret from the late Pontiff.

Ralph Fiennes will play Cardinal Lomeli. John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini will also star.

Focus Features will distribute in the US. The chairman, Peter Kujawski, stated:

“Edward Berger is a devilishly talented filmmaker who made our collective hearts race by showing us what happens to our better angels in those Machiavellian halls of power. We cannot wait to bring audiences to the edge of their seats.”

In a distribution deal that seems to have come full circle, Berger responded:

“27 years ago, I landed my first job as an intern at the company that later became Focus. Ever since I left and embarked on the long path of making movies, I have been wanting to return. To now work with Peter Kujawski and his incredibly dedicated team feels like I have arrived at a home that I‘ve always missed. I am grateful and so cannot wait to share the movie with audiences in the U.S. as well as around the world at the hands of Focus and all our distribution partners.”

The film will be released in limited theatrical in NY and LA on November 1st and wide on November 8th.

Kung Fu Panda 4 ​cleans up​ at the Box Office. Here are the numbers:

  • $80.5 M Worldwide
    • $58.3 M domestic
  • #1 at Box Office
  • $85 M budget

This is DreamWorks’ highest box-office opening since the pandemic, and if the film made over $60 M yesterday, it will be their highest opening in 12 years.

The film has virtually no competition in the under-25 demographic.

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Emma Stone was unabashedly joyful as she won Best Actress. Here’s a snippet from her acceptance speech:

“It’s about a team that came together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. And that is the best part about making movies, is all of us together. And I am so deeply honored to share this with every cast member, with every crew member, with every single person who poured their love and their care and their brilliance into the making of this film. And Yorgos, thank you for the gift of a lifetime in Bella Baxter. I am forever thankful for you.”

Stone’s first endeavor into more serious dramatic work was granted by Alejandro González Iñárritu in his 2015 Academy Awards best picture winner, ​Birdman​ (2014).

It wasn’t until 2018 that Emma Stone’s full potential was unlocked by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ ​The Favourite​, where she plays an 18th-century maiden who sinks to great levels of depravity to seduce the queen for her personal gain.

In their second collaboration, Poor Things, Stone’s fiery exploration of selfhood is bizarre and authentic. A masterclass in acting.

Cillian Murphy won his first Oscar. Here’s a snippet from his acceptance speech:

“Thank you to the Academy, Chris Nolan, and Emma Thomas, being the wildest, most exhilarating, most creatively satisfying journey you’ve taken me on over the last 20 years. I owe you more than I can say… So, you know, we made a film, we made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb. And for better or for worse, we’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world. So I’d really like to dedicate this to the peacemakers everywhere.”

Murphy has been a Nolan stalwart from his psychotically masterful role as Scarecrow in Batman Begins (​clip​, 2005) to his measured heir in Inception (​clip​, 2010) to his shivering solider in Dunkirk (​clip​, 2017).

What bounds all these characters together is intense hubris and humility. These qualities are played with magnificent depth in Oppenheimer.

FESTIVALS

Three festival sales:

  • Grand Theft Hamlet
    • Official selection: SXSW
    • Worldwide buyer: Altitude Films (UK distributor for Io Capitano)
    • ​Teaser​

Official synopsis:

Have you ever staged Hamlet during a shootout with the cops? Shot entirely inside the video game Grand Theft Auto, this documentary charts the hilarious and profoundly moving story of two out-of-work actors as they try to stage a full production of Hamlet within this notoriously violent digital world.

Official synopsis:

New Zealand–born groundbreaking CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth risks it all to show the reality of war from inside the conflict, staring down danger and confronting those who perpetuate it.

  • Meanwhile on Earth
    • Played at the Berlin Film Festival
    • North American Buyer: Metrograph
    • Dir: Jérémy Clapin’ (dir: Netflix’s animated I Lost My Body)
    • First look ​clip​

Official synopsis:

The film is the portrait of a woman caught between two worlds, that of the living and the dead, between hope and resignation, between childhood and adulthood, between the Earth and Space. Above all, it’s a film that tries to convey a feeling: that of only half belonging to the world.

Metrograph recently ​launched​ an expanded effort to distribute and potentially finance up to 10 films/year. Metrograph is primarily known as an indie theater in NYC’s Lower East Side.

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT

The short film Academy Awards occasionally usher in a new generation of talent. Here are the famous examples:

  • Martin McDonagh
    • Dir: In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
    • 2005: Best Live Action Short, Six Shooter
    • ​Full short​
  • Andrea Arnold
    • Dir: American Honey, Fish Tank
    • 2004: Best Live Action Short, Wasp
    • ​Full short​
  • Taika Waititi
    • Dir: Jojo Rabbit, What We Do in the Shadows
    • 2004: nominated for Best Live Action Short Two Cars, One Night
    • ​Full short​

Here are tonight’s winners:

Best Documentary Short Film

Proudfoot and Bowers previously won an Academy Award for Best Short Documentary for ​A Concerto Is a Conversation​ (2021).

Best Animated Short Film

Dave Mullins has been working steadily in the animation department at Pixar from The Incredibles (2004) to Soul (2020).

ON THIS DAY

1931. F. W. Murnau, German film director (Nosferatu, The Last Laugh), dies at 42.

Watch the full Oscars in-Memoriam segment ​here​ set to “Time to Say Goodbye.” This is the same song that was sung by Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in Step Brothers (2008, ​clip​).

See you tomorrow!

—

Written by Gabriel Miller. Research by Spencer Carter.

Editor: ​Gabriel Miller​.

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