Awards Outlook - Wes Anderson & The Oscars
Photo from Deadline
With Asteroid City coming out this year and just in time for Oscars season, Wes Anderson has found himself in the discussion for Oscar buzz once again. Anderson is responsible for some of the more quirky and original movies in Hollywood and that usually means a lone Best Original Screenplay nomination or a few technicals. However, given the legacy of this director there is a chance that he could be a frontrunner for nominations this year.
Bottle Rocket and Rushmore were his first two films and they flew under the radar of Oscar nominations but Anderson began to make a name for himself in these films and was definitely considered for a screenplay nomination.
The Royal Tenenbaums brought Anderson his first Oscar nomination for Screenplay but this was the lone nomination due to the quirky nature of the film.
With his next two films of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zisu and The Darjeeling Limited, Wes began to cross the line into being someone who was famous for oblong and quirky films where he didn’t care about awards and critics and just simply made his art, which was admirable but not successful when it came to nominations.
Wes Anderson then came back into the light of the Oscars with Fantastic Mr. Fox got a much deserved nomination for Best Animated Feature which was lost to the Pixar machine creating Up this year. It also received a Best Original Score nomination for Alexandre Desplat which would prove to be a profitable relationship for both.
He was then officially back when he received another lone screenplay nomination for Moonrise Kingdom and at this point he was established as that director of quirky movies that will get a screenplay nomination. However, then came The Grand Budapest Hotel.
The Grand Budapest Hotel was the most successful Oscar nomination for Anderson, winning four Oscars in Production Design, Original Score (for Desplat), Costume Design, and Makeup. These were all technical wins, but were far more than any other year. Meanwhile, the film also received nominations for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Editing, and Cinematography, showing that Anderson was finally being taken seriously and his unique style was beginning to be understood.
Isle of Dogs was another of Anderson’s animated films which easily grabbed a nomination for Best Animated film which was lost to the cultural dynamo of Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse but also was nominated for Best Original Score with was another Alexandre Desplat collaboration.
Anderson’s Oscar journey has most recently concluded with a whimper with his most recent film The French Dispatch receiving zero Oscar nominations which could have been because it was a very different style of his types of films alienating his loyal fans and not welcoming some of the more generic viewers.
Wes Anderson and the Oscars are a strange relationship and one that is difficult to predict and so the future of Asteroid City will be a tough one to predict. He is a unique director that is growing more and more popular by the day and therefore there is a chance that Asteroid City could turn the tide for Anderson and add to his collection of nominations and possibly wins.