“What was the siren’s song like?”
When it comes to Oscar voters like Odysseus, the answer is “everything you wanted to be.”
The 2027 Oscar race appears to have found its center of gravity and a front-runner led under the Universal banner. Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” the Homer adaptation that shattered the director’s own record with a worldwide box office gross of $264 million, began its official courtship with Academy voters this week with a series of member screenings at home and abroad. If the early temperature readings are correct and the buzz holds up, the film will enter the fall corridor as a must-win movie for everyone else.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held its first member screening on Saturday at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles, where it was shown in 70mm. The roughly 1,000-seat chamber was nearly full, a sign of turnout early in the season’s unique form of voting. As AMPAS becomes more international, its UK membership, which has become a powerful voting bloc, also took place on Monday at the Soho Hotel. And the New York City members enjoyed a trip back to Ithaca on Wednesday in 35mm.
Unsurprisingly, the reaction from some of the members in attendance was one of awe.
“I didn’t think there was anything that could top ‘Oppenheimer’ and Chris[Nolan’s]directorial debut, ‘Following,'” said one veteran Academy member in attendance. “He is the definitive filmmaker of our time.”
That kind of enthusiasm and language are important. Nolan spent the better part of two decades as the most commercially dominant filmmaker, until the 2024 historical biopic “Oppenheimer” dominated the season, won Best Picture and gave Nolan his first directing gig, but the Oscars were slow to reward him. Typically, voters don’t hand filmmakers multiple coronations, especially one in close succession. But they reward a body of work that continues to improve, and “The Odyssey,” the first feature film shot entirely on Imax cameras, improves by design.
Not everyone left without hesitation, but the warning was still incredibly loving rather than harmful.
“I thought it was great,” said another anonymous Academy voter. “It’s a little long, but the scale is big.”
Melinda Sue Gordon
The most consequential conversations will occur within the acting categories, the Academy’s largest voting bloc, which determines performances from accolades to nominations. Matt Damon leads an ensemble that includes Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, John Leguizamo, and Jon Bernthal. At least one chapter member skipped the official screening and instead bought a ticket and returned with the rest of his calendar figured out.
“This was like the NBA All-Star Game of acting,” the actor says. “Matt (Damon), both of the ‘Johns’ (Bernthal and Leguizamo), Rob (Pattinson) and Anne (Hathaway) were fantastic. We wish them all the best as the film comes out the rest of this year.”
Groups of this size have historically cannibalized their own campaigns, splitting their support votes into confetti. But when it comes to leading roles, the equation is different, and Damon, who earned one Oscar nomination for his co-writing of Good Will Hunting (1997) and two Best Acting nominations over a 30-year career for Invictus and The Martian, suddenly finds himself benefiting from the biggest break of his life.
The veteran craftsmen in attendance described crying twice, and the two moments they cited are telling, as neither was a series of battles.
“When he[Matt Damon]hears the sirens and when he pet the beautiful dog, I got very emotional,” the member says. “I think Matt should win an Oscar. He should.”
A scene in which Argos the Dog lands so hard also provides a detailed campaign that strategists dream of. Spectacle gets nominated for film, but it’s the intimacy and emotion within it that gets the actors recognized and ultimately wins the film the crown.
Variety magazine has already given its take on how well the film is likely to do during awards season. Anyone with eyes and ears can feel the passion and overwhelming adoration for the mythological epic, but that feeling is further cemented when you hear the opinions of the voters who decide how well this epic does.
But we have a long way to go. Telluride, Venice and Toronto have multiple dramas, comedies, genres and low-profile projects slated for the future, all of which could be strong challengers to “The Odyssey.” And while Fall Prestige’s schedule hasn’t been revealed, Academy members tend to get hooked on summer releases in July and get distracted by shiny new objects in January. Nolan’s own Dunkirk was nominated for eight awards when it was released in the summer, but lost Best Picture to Guillermo del Toro’s fable in December.
Still, the difference between praise and momentum is usually measured in whether members show up and then speak. This week, they did both, according to various sources.
