“Juror #2” Making An Oscar Comeback?

Though there’s a lot of lead-up, the actual Oscars voting period is quite short generally. This year the nominations voting period was originally slated to run for five days – from Wednesday, January 8th to Sunday, January 12th.

Then the Los Angeles fires happened which led to extensions of the end deadline and delays of the announcement until this coming Thursday. As a result, there’s questions over how that has impacted the vote.

Trade papers often do feature articles prior to the nominations talking with Academy members about what films they’ve watched and what way they’re likely to vote, all in an effort to try and find some form of consensus amongst members.

In one such piece for Variety this weekend, it has been indicated that among a lot of Oscar voters that there is a big groundswell of support for Clint Eastwood’s “Juror #2” – especially among the producers and directors branches.

The very well-reviewed film got effectively buried by Warners who gave it just a short 30 screen theatrical run where it did well despite little promotion. Then the title hit VOD and Max and topped both charts.

According to the trade, a vote for the film is being seen as both a ‘symbolic gesture’ for Eastwood and a great big middle finger to Warner Bros. for their handling of the film. Warner Bros hasn’t been campaigning for the film so if it does manage a Best Picture nomination somehow, it could be seen as an embarrassment for the studio.

Another take away is that quite a few voters admit they haven’t gotten around to seeing Brady Corbet’s critically acclaimed “The Brutalist” with the film’s demanding 3.5 hour runtime and late release partly to blame (it didn’t open States-side until December 20th).

Other reveals is that Golden Globes do impact voters in so much as it pushes certain films up watchlists with “Emilia Pérez,” “Conclave,” “A Real Pain” and “I’m Still Here” cited as the biggest beneficiaries. There’s also strong support for “Challengers” among younger voters, but less so older ones.

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