Last week brought the first look at Timothée Chalamet in “Marty Supreme,” cementing many predictions that he is the preseason favorite for Best Actor. However, last week also brought near confirmation that it will be months before anyone sees more than two minutes of Chalamet or “Marty Supreme,” since their absence from the final lineup announcements for TIFF and NYFF all but confirms they are skipping fall festivals completely. As such, it likely won’t have any screenings until mere weeks before its Christmas Day release.
Historically, this is a very ominous sign that Chalamet isn’t the overwhelming Oscar favorite many suspect or hope for. Since the expanded era started in 2009, only a select group of people have won acting Oscars for films that weren’t seen until after fall festival season – and they all had advantages that Chalamet and “Marty Supreme” almost surely will not have.
This doesn’t mean Chalamet won’t be nominated, since just last year “A Complete Unknown” didn’t start screening until last December, and he still likely finished second to Adrien Brody for Best Actor anyway. But while late screening films and performances often use last-second momentum to get nominations, and sometimes threaten for major wins, more often than not, it isn’t enough lately.
The last two Oscar-winning performances to win for films that didn’t screen until winter or later were Ariana DeBose for “West Side Story,” and Daniel Kaluuya for “Judas and the Black Messiah.” Yet since those Oscar races were held in the extended pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, they barely apply as examples here. Still, they were in big studio movies that got Best Picture nominations, like many other examples before them.
The last Oscar-winning performance in a non-pandemic year, for a film that wasn’t seen until after fall festivals, was Rami Malek for “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 2018. In that case, being in a gigantic box office hit was enough to push Malek through, regardless of when it first came out or what many critics actually thought about it. Being in a winter box office hit was also a factor in Leonardo DiCaprio’s win for “The Revenant” in 2015, Christoph Waltz and Anne Hathaway’s wins in 2012 for “Django Unchained” and “Les Misérables,” and Sandra Bullock’s win in 2009 for “The Blind Side.” And while both Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are skipping fall festivals this year, too, with “Wicked: For Good,” at least they will have a massive box office hit pushing them forward for the second year in a row.
In other cases, being in a Best Picture nominee from a major studio was all some late-breaking winners needed, whether they were mega hits or not – such as Viola Davis for “Fences” in 2016, and both Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for “The Fighter” in 2010. The only two real exceptions to these rules were Meryl Streep’s win for “The Iron Lady” in 2011 and Jeff Bridges for “Crazy Heart” in 2009, as neither film was a big studio box office hit or a Best Picture nominee. Yet Streep is pretty much an exception to most any rule, especially in a weak and weird year like 2011, and Bridges had a decades-long overdue narrative to overshadow everything.
Chalamet’s biggest fans will claim he is long overdue, too, yet two Oscar losses in a span of eight years for someone who’s only turning 30 this December is not the kind of “overdue” Bridges was sixteen years ago. He also isn’t a Streep-level icon yet, and “Marty Supreme” is a biopic based on a table-tennis champion instead of a controversial world leader, so the example of “The Iron Lady” doesn’t apply to him here either. But when it comes to the other examples, their advantages are more glaring.
Almost every recent Oscar-winning performance for a film that skipped fall festivals and didn’t premiere anywhere at all until late fall or winter was for box office hits and/or films that were pushed by major studios into Best Picture nominations. “Marty Supreme” is different because it is from A24, as for all its Oscar success and recent efforts to get on the level of the major studios, it isn’t on the level of a Disney, WB, Paramount or Universal yet – or even a Searchlight or Focus Features that has a major studio as a parent company. Ironically enough, “Marty Supreme” is A24’s biggest attempt to do things like a non-indie studio, with its reported $70 million budget, its gamble of a Christmas release against “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” and skipping all festivals, unlike almost every other past A24 Oscar contender.
Nonetheless, the most it can hope for at the box office is coming somewhat close to “Everything Everywhere All at Once’s” $77 million record-setting domestic haul for A24. For that matter, merely nearing Chalamet’s “A Complete Unknown” $75 million box office would be significant – but a Bob Dylan biopic from Searchlight and James Mangold is something far different from an A24 biopic helmed by Josh Safdie. Matching the $50 million of the Safdies’ “Uncut Gems” might be enough of a success story, although that didn’t result in Oscar recognition for the Safdies or Adam Sandler. Nonetheless, if these box office numbers are a long shot – unless Chalamet really is the king of Christmastime even for films so unlike “Wonka,” “A Complete Unknown,” or “Little Women” – it would put “Marty Supreme” at a potential disadvantage during the worst time.
For most A24 films, they would use huge film festival raves to make them instant Oscar contenders, regardless of box office results or budgets. But without “Marty Supreme” screening at Venice, Telluride, Toronto, or New York, it is lining up to be one giant question mark right up until November and December. At which point, countless other films and performances will be locked in and leading the races already. This, of course, will all change if the film suddenly decides to drop a surprise screening at either Telluride or NYFF in the coming weeks but as of right now, let’s assume that’s not going to happen.
By that time, Jeremy Allen White may have the biopic vote sown up for “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” George Clooney might become the sentimental favorite for Netflix’s “Jay Kelly,” Leonardo DiCaprio could have already paid off skipping the fall festivals for “One Battle After Another,” Dwayne Johnson can claim dibs as a contender for an A24 sports biopic directed by a Safdie when “The Smashing Machine” launches at Venice and TIFF, or some other surprise contender could change the race long before Chalamet shows himself. Either way, Chalamet, A24, and “Marty Supreme” are taking a big gamble letting so many other films and actors get such a head start, especially since they won’t have the advantages most every other late-starting Oscar winner had in this era.
Without significant studio backing, a big box office, a truly overdue narrative, or a Streep or Bridges-level body of work, no actor has won an Oscar in the expanded era while screening as late as Chalamet and “Marty Supreme” stand to. Is Chalamet really that undeniable at this point in his career to buck all those trends, no matter what “Marty Supreme” does or no matter how it is received? And even if his actual performance is at a “Call Me by Your Name” or “A Complete Unknown” level, will it be too little too late to win by the time anyone sees it?
A24 has put a lot into “Marty Supreme” and has almost nothing else yet to work with this Oscar season aside from “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” and “The Smashing Machine,” so that alone may be enough reason to believe A24 will push it in somehow. But while A24 has won many major Oscars in many improbable ways, it has never done it for a film it has withheld and kept a mystery as long as “Marty Supreme” stands to be.
None of this on its own can stop Chalamet from getting nominated, or from even seeming like a real threat to win for a long time. In fact, Chalamet is probably one of the few who have come close to winning on a path like this one just last year, although he did fall short when “A Complete Unknown” couldn’t build enough momentum in time for final winner voting after the nominations.
Between that and the last sixteen years in general, someone like Chalamet winning for something with the rollout of “Marty Supreme” is a much greater long shot than many preseason pundits believe. Yet, like with everything else about “Marty Supreme,” for whatever reason, there are still many months to go until anyone knows anything for certain.
Do you think “Marty Supreme” will be nominated for Best Picture, Director and/or Actor at this year’s Academy Awards? Have you seen the trailer yet? If so, what do you think of it? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account and check out the team’s latest Oscar predictions here.
