So the boxoffice for “This Is It” is stupendous, but this time of year, it’s always fair to ask about a different kind of gold.
Since bowing Tuesday night, Kenny Ortega’s pic about the elaborate Michael Jackson concert rehearsals has been drawing highly favorable critical response in addition to a solid commercial reaction ($2.2m domestically on Tuesday). Critics have praised the pop icon’s dedication and artistry as well as the film’s stylishly executed musical numbers.
Those endorsements have encouraged Sony to consider an awards play, while a number of commentators have painted a what-if scenario on its chances for an Oscar best picture nomination.
The studio is submitting the film for Academy Awards consideration, as all studios do for pretty much any film that opens during the course of the year. While the best picture talk is quiet so far, the field’s expansion to 10 pics and the hybrid film’s clear eligibility in the category could land it in the mix with other dark-horse titles like “The Hangover” — especially if voters are swayed by its phenom status.
The movie’s tech aspects also could put in contention for several below-the-line categories, while some are not counting out Ortega himself on the director front given how his skills are visible more prominently than in most films as we see him choreograph the Jackson concerts.
“This Is It” is not, however, eligible to enter one of the most obvious fields: the Academy Award for best documentary. AMPAS rules state that a pic must conclude weeklong qualifying runs in both New York and Los Angeles before Aug. 31 of the year for which it seeks to be nominated.
The rule is designed to promote theatrical exposure of pics that normally might go quickly to television or DVD, which would present a particular irony, what with the Jackson pic poised to be one of the most successful nonfiction films in recent history.
Careful AMPAS wording is likely to thwart chances of the title track from “This Is It” competing for best original song, with rules stating that songs are “original and written specifically for the motion picture.” Even if Sony could bypass concerns about Paul Anka’s involvement on the song — the studio recently acknowledged the musician would be credited in liner notes for the soundtrack — it would be hard-pressed to argue that a song written for a concert whose rehearsals just happened to be filmed was in fact written “specifically” for a motion picture.The Golden Globes chances for “This Is it” are dicier.
Sony is thought to be deterred from making a push, as consultants say a bid for the best comedy/musical category could run afoul of several Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. rules.
The group’s bylaws are written to preclude the nomination of docs; indeed, efforts to nominate pics from the likes of Michael Moore have in the past caused a rift in the group and resulted in such plans being shelved.
And the HFPA also has taken a restrictive definition of musicals, saying that the songs have to propel a story forward to qualify. It would take a bit of selective reasoning to argue that the songs in “This Is It” do that.
Most important, the HFPA generally wants to keep the field of films it screens at a manageable level given time constraints and the hew and cry that could come from competitors. “Almost every awards consultant I know who ever had a doc or concert movie and couldn’t get the HFPA to go along with it would scream bloody murder if they qualified this as a musical,” one consultant said.
The Globes board is scheduled to meet in mid-November for the final meeting in which it could conceivably revise the rules for this year.
Maybe the bigger factor is that when it comes to knowing the awards prospects for a concert-rehearsal pic, nobody knows anything. “It’s such an unusual movie, it’s hard to know what the hell awards groups are going to do,” said one industry veteran.
