Right now, a vampire movie directed by a decade-long favorite of the online community is getting rave reviews across the board. It is exceeding even the highest expectations of its director’s fanbase, is hoping to be a word-of-mouth box office sensation, and has its biggest dreamers preparing to spread the word for a bonafide awards season campaign.
Yet, if all of that sounds a bit familiar, it is because this happened a couple of months ago. Whereas it was Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” that rose from the grave to critical, box office and slight awards success then, now Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” will seek to match or even improve on that standard, starting with its April 18 release into theaters and IMAX.
“Nosferatu” and “Sinners” are clearly very different takes on the vampire genre, but they still appear to share some notable similarities and pointed differences. Chief among those differences is that “Nosferatu” was based on a 100+ year old movie, which was itself an unauthorized adaptation of “Dracula” and had been remade several times more before Eggers got hold of it. In contrast, “Sinners” is not an IP of any kind, which makes it the latest test case to prove original, non-franchise-based movies can still make it big in this era.
Nonetheless, while “Sinners” is Coogler’s first movie that isn’t based on a franchise or a true story, “Nosferatu” was Eggers’ first movie based on IP. Regardless, Eggers proved there was still room to truly reinvent an old story instead of merely copying and pasting it, showing his skills at both adaptation and originality all at once. That, in effect, is what Coogler already did with “Fruitvale Station,” “Creed,” “Black Panther,” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” with “Sinners” set to show his own skills go beyond adaptation after all.
It says something that both Eggers and Coogler used the vampire genre to branch themselves, despite how it has one of the most well-worn and often exhausted-to-death formulas in the industry. However, both “Nosferatu” and apparently “Sinners” have set out to turn the genre upside down by giving it a perspective it has rarely seen before.
“Nosferatu” did so by turning the doomed, sacrificial female lead Ellen into the actual lead character, with more attention paid to her afflictions, lusts, and societal disadvantages than any version of her beforehand. With “Sinners,” it sets vampires loose on a setting they have rarely, if ever, attacked on screen before – a rural black community and juke joint in the 1930s Deep South, with twin characters played by Michael B. Jordan at the center of the rampage.
Hollywood willfully or ignorantly ignores, or just plain misunderstands, a simple lesson time and again – that even the most oft-told, seemingly unoriginal stories, genres, and formulas can be made to look new again from a new point of view. “Nosferatu” proved it when Eggers made that centuries-old story look new and freshly revealing again through Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen and the most frighteningly detailed and practical version of the vile Count Orlock yet. Now, “Sinners” seeks to take a new look through the vampire genre with its own fresh and relatively unfamiliar eyes, settings, protagonists, overtones, and metaphors – and so far, pretty much everyone is in awe.
Heading into the weekend of its release, “Sinners” has a 99% Tomatometer and far more telling 8.8 average on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as an 83 on Metacritic. “Nosferatu” ultimately ended up with an 84%/7.9 average on Rotten Tomatoes and a 78 on Metacritic, but that helped it set a high bar elsewhere, too. With its significant opening and word of mouth at the peak of holiday and award season, “Nosferatu” not only made nearly $100 million domestically but picked up four Oscar nominations for Best Makeup, Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, and Best Costume Design – a rare haul for a supposedly mere vampire movie.
With those recent memories of “Nosferatu’s” Oscar and box office success, and with far bigger raves of its own so far, a better than decent opening and word of mouth for “Sinners” over the next week or two will inevitably inspire awards speculation of its own. In that scenario, its biggest fans will argue it should do just as well or better than “Nosferatu” did a mere few months ago, although it has advantages and significant disadvantages over its predecessor.
On paper, “Sinners” should have the advantage of being released by a big studio in Warner Bros. and of having a director with a far bigger blockbuster track record than Eggers. Of course, Coogler had the Marvel machine and the four-decades-old “Rocky” franchise to make his last three movies such big hits – and only then did they each pick up major Oscar nominations to boot. And at a time where Warner Bros either can’t or purposefully won’t support a real auteur’s would-be blockbusters as they would with something like “A Minecraft Movie,” there’s no telling if it will have the will or motivation to properly push “Sinners” to the opening it might deserve while it counts its Minecraft dollars – let alone keep pushing it during awards season eight months from now.
A studio’s multitasking wasn’t a problem for “Nosferatu” when Focus Features properly made it one of its biggest financial hits ever, even as it was otherwise busy pushing “Conclave” to the front of the Best Picture race. Then again, Focus Features has taken far better care of its directors and awards season hopefuls than Warner Bros ever has in the David Zaslav era.
Unless such films are billion-dollar behemoths like “Barbie,” the current Warner Bros regime will either let an ambitious blockbuster like “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” flop if it doesn’t open right, push something like “Joker: Folie a Deux” before it flops much harder, or let something like “Dune: Part Two” coast when it probably could have got more nominations and wins with a better release date. And if “Sinners” still has far more favorable box office headlines than the first two examples and maintains its high opening critic and fan scores to boot, it will all be moot if Zaslav actually manages not to sabotage Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio’s “One Battle After Another,” and lets it be its big Oscar season hopeful after all.
None of that takes into account the Academy’s oft-cited bias against certain genre films, which “Nosferatu” only overcame to a point. Despite a decent push from critics and a few award voters, “Nosferatu” never quite got onto the Best Picture bubble, couldn’t push Depp or Bill Skarsgard into serious acting nomination consideration and fell short of recognition even in a muddled Best Adapted Screenplay field. If it couldn’t do that after opening so well during Christmas and the very start of Oscar voting, something like “Sinners” would likely have a harder time months after its own release.
Coogler himself already did this with “Black Panther,” which opened all the way back in February 2018 – but it had $600+ million domestic box office and the best reviews in Marvel history to keep it in the conversation. For an R-rated movie without superheroes or cinematic universes, even a bonus, Jordan only improves its long odds so much.
If “Sinners” falls short in major categories like “Nosferatu” did, then maybe it can at least match below the line or come close. Best Makeup might be a tough sell since it doesn’t appear Coogler’s vampires have anything close to the prosthetics Skarsgard had, and Jordan’s two characters appear to look fairly identical. Perhaps it can get the kind of Best Original Score consideration “Nosferatu” fell short of, given its heavy jazz influence and the composition of two-time Oscar winner Ludwig Goransson, whose first Oscar was for “Black Panther.” Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, and Best Production Design might be harder to come by since “Sinners” doesn’t have the gray or Gothic look “Nosferatu” gave to 1830s Germany and Transylvania.
Creatively, if the first few dozen “Sinners” reviews are accurate and point towards greater raves to come, then it will go down as a triumphant reimagining of the vampire genre like “Nosferatu” did a mere few months ago. If it has the box office legs “Nosferatu” did as well, only on a bigger scale from a bigger studio with bigger names behind it, then it will go down as an even more important success for originality and for auteur, big-budget filmmaking, at a time where such achievements are sorely needed.
In that context, keeping such buzz alive for eight more months into awards season would be a mere bonus, if nothing more. Still, if something like “Nosferatu” could stake just a small claim into the Oscar race, “Sinners” doing the same or better would raise far more eyebrows, living or dead. As unlikely as that may be now, if the review scores and box office projections get any higher, then maybe its grave shouldn’t be dug quite yet.
Do you think “Sinners” will be another Oscar contender for Ryan Coogler? Are you planning to see it this weekend? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
