THE SEASON: Oscar may let the 'Sunshine' in, but what about all those producers?
By Pete Hammond
With a big precursor awards weekend now behind us and many heading to Sundance to freeze their asses off in search of next year’s big Oscar indie success story, the rest of us are left behind to ponder the fate of last January’s Park City darling, “Little Miss Sunshine.” This, as it moves from winning a leading (tied with “Dreamgirls”) 4 Critics Choice awards and 0 Globes last weekend to its first big guild test this upcoming Saturday where it is nominated at the Producers Guild awards for their best picture prize.
With other key guild nominations including WGA (for Michael Arndt’s script), DGA (for Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’ direction) and SAG (for Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin and the ensemble cast), many inside and out of the Academy feel it is virtually a lock for a Best Picture nomination come Tuesday.
Fox Searchlight’s $10 million dollar 2006 Sundance acquisition is looking very good right now to fill the “small” movie slot in Oscar’s top five, where past character-oriented “festival” type works have been nominated like “In The Bedroom,” “The Full Monty,” “Secrets And Lies,” “Shine,” “Il Postino,” “The Crying Game,” “My Left Foot,” “Lost In Translation,” “Sideways” and of course last year’s “Crash” which Lions Gate picked up at the 2004 Toronto Film Fest and piloted all the way to a rare indie-flick best-pic victory.
That Kodak moment has people wondering if there isn’t a sea change in the Academy; a new way of thinking and the possibility that this “Little” picture, which was the first serious contender out of the gate last summer and the first to send DVD screeners, could just be the LAST one standing around 9pm or so on February 25th. In the kind of currently wide-open Oscar landscape we have, this scenario seems as plausible as any.
“You were robbed,” writer/director Jason Reitman told Albert Berger, one of “Sunshine’s” five proud producers at the packed Fox after party at Monday’s Golden Globes. He was referring to the “Dreamgirls” victory in the Best Picture comedy/musical category in which not only “Sunshine” was nominated, but also Reitman’s own “Thank You For Smoking.”
That we’re even HEARING these kinds of conversations about a tiny character-driven comedy that didn’t even have a home this time a year ago is remarkable. It’s an indie, it’s a summer release and it’s a comedy; three elements that don’t usually add up to an Academy Best Picture, but it’s definitely in the hunt even as there are clouds getting in the way of all the Sunshine.
Berger is joined on the producing team by partner Ron Yerxa as well as Marc Turtletaub, David T. Friendly and Peter Saraf. All have been certified by the credit police at the very protective PGA as actual producers of the film and all would win Saturday if “Sunshine” were to be victorious. The PGA now vets producers for the Academy as well and has informed them that all five passed the arbitration process with flying colors and ALL deserve full credit for the film.
The Academy however is apparently sticking to its strict policy of allowing only three producers to actually receive credit and Oscars in the Best Picture category (instituted when “Shakespeare In Love” and it’s eclectic five-pack producing team won in 1999 causing controversy over who really did the work). If “Sunshine” is nominated, as appears likely, the Academy producers branch executive committee will then have to do its own arbitration to determine which three of the PGA vetted five will actually be eligible for Oscars and thus setting up a ‘Solomon's Choice’ situation (unless of course the “Sunshine” producers let them off the hook and decide to make that choice themselves).
This is clearly the last thing the Acad wants to deal with especially since they (along with the PGA) have spent the last several months battling (and defeating) “Crash” producer Bob Yari in court over last year’s process that left four of the six credited producers out in the cold on Hollywood Boulevard come Oscar night.
When asked about this potentially controversial (and some would say unfair) development at various kudos events over the weekend, three of those producers directly involved almost uniformly winced and had little comment, but Searchlight topper Peter Rice told us confidently he thinks, and certainly hopes, the Academy would do right by all five. That seems unlikely considering its rigid stance against rule changes in the middle of an awards season, and for good reason since it makes them vulnerable to complaints from others in similar situations.
Clearly denying the ultimate glory to deserving producers was not the intention when the Academy made this rule change after the “Shakespeare” debacle. New PGA President Marshall Herskovitz thinks this could become a bellwether moment (if it happens) in the guild’s arbitration process, at least as it relates to how the Academy implements its recommendations.
There are probably some potential arbitrators in the Academy right now who are praying ANYTHING, even “Basic Instinct 2,” gets nominated over “Sunshine” so they don’t have to deal with this headache.
Another interesting sidelight to a “Sunshine” nomination and possible victory is what it would mean to Focus Features and its painfully star-crossed history when it comes to nabbing the big one. Focus, which WON key directing and writing Oscars for its front-running “Brokeback Mountain,” WON directing, writing and acting Oscars for “The Pianist” and WON directing, writing and acting Oscars for “Traffic” (in its previous incarnation as USA Films) only to finally lose out on the Best Picture prize for all of them actually had “Little Miss Sunshine” in active development but put it into turnaround, thereby allowing competitor Searchlight to eventually snap it up at Sundance.
Tuesday we’re back to analyze the nominations as THE SEASON finally, FINALLY gets to hear from ‘ol man Oscar himself.
