Chapter 779: The True Bellwether

"Those minor association awards can all be ignored..."

Sitting in a single armchair, Penny Kalis spoke earnestly to Duke, Scarlett, and Nancy Josephson. "The Best Actress awards from the New York Film Critics Association, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Society of Film Critics—these three still carry a lot of weight."

"Even if we manage an early release," Duke said, shaking his head, "Scar's chances of taking those three December awards are still very slim."

To be exact, it was basically impossible. Scarlett would be completely dragged down by him.

With the departure of renowned older-generation film critics like Roger Ebert, coupled with an era where anyone could call themselves a critic, Duke's conflict with the professional critic community was no longer as sharp as it had once been. Still, hoping to reap any rewards from the critics' association awards was essentially daydreaming.

Then again, he didn't care too much about these three awards anyway. There was a hierarchy of importance even among the Oscar precursor awards.

"On the thirtieth of last month," Nancy Josephson, who had been silent until now, spoke up, "the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globe Awards announced their nominations. Both you and Scar were shortlisted for individual awards."

The moment she finished, Penny Kalis took over. "The Golden Globe Awards can be ignored. We should pour all our resources into the big three guild awards. We still have a month before the Oscar nominations are announced; that's plenty of time to maneuver."

Even though the School's rules stipulated that all PR activities must halt once the Oscar nominations were announced, very few people actually adhered to this. Still, it would certainly make some maneuvers less convenient to pull off.

Duke glanced at Scarlett, then nodded to Penny Kalis. "Focus our main offensive for the precursor awards on the big three guilds. Ignore the Golden Globes."

Having knocked around Hollywood for so many years, Duke knew very well that with the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globe Awards announcing their respective nominations, this year's North American awards season was now in full swing. From the beginning of October every year up until the final "And the..." the following year, a dizzying array of awards would crop up. If one wanted to have the last laugh at the Oscars, they first had to recognize which awards were the real deal—wielding actual industry status and influence to sway the future—and which were merely trend-chasers, desperately aligning themselves with the Golden Statuette to ride its coattails.

To achieve anything meaningful during the awards season, the phrase from across the ocean—"right time, right place, right people"—was naturally indispensable.

Among these three elements, the foremost was the "right time." Whether it was an independent film from Sundance, a commercial blockbuster from the Summer Season, or an arthouse picture from the awards season, everyone wanted a piece of the Oscar pie.

However, the majority of the "heavily occupied" Oscar voters simply didn't have the time to watch them all one by one. Thus, if a studio wanted its work to stand out among hundreds of DVD screeners, the timing of its release became a crucial element.

This was one of the reasons why most "awards season films" chose to hit theaters between November and December—right before Oscar nomination voting began. To borrow another phrase from across the ocean, a pavilion close to the water gets the moonlight first!

Looking back at the Best Picture winners over the past fifteen years, only two—Saving Private Ryan and Gladiator—had opened outside the awards season window.

Then came the "right place." Compared to other categories of precursor awards, only the "critics' association awards" were highly regional.

Every year, as the awards season approached, critics' groups in major first-tier cities across North America would gather to select their personal favorites for the year's best in various categories. Yet among the myriad of "association awards," the only ones with genuine reference value were the New York Film Critics Association, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Society of Film Critics awards.

The New York and Los Angeles awards went without saying. The former sat in the artsy, high-brow city of New York, boasting the longest history of any film critics' award in America. The latter was situated in the very heart of the film industry, always able to reflect the views of at least a segment of industry professionals to some extent.

Building on that, the National Society of Film Critics award—famous for its unconventional choices—used its unique tastes to give a helpful push to films that were relatively obscure by comparison.

As for the loudly touted and intimidating-sounding "Critics' Choice Movie Awards," it actually carried very little influence within the industry. Unlike the professional film critics' associations mentioned above, this award was hosted by the "Broadcast Film Critics Association," which was composed of journalists from all over the country and a small handful of critics. To put it bluntly, its sole purpose was to make a name for itself by packaging itself as a legitimate Oscar bellwether.

The two points above were critical, but the absolute most important element of all came from the "right people."

That meant the guild awards—the recognition from within the industry itself!

Anyone with even a slight understanding of the Oscar voting rules knew that if you wanted to win, gaining the approval of your own industry peers was the most crucial step. This dynamic was readily apparent in the major guild awards for directors, writers, producers, and actors.

If the "critics' association awards" could more or less influence how the Oscar voters picked through their towering stacks of "submitted" screeners, then the guild awards were the ones that could truly be called the "bellwether."

The reason was simple: the voters for the guild awards were all top-tier industry professionals in every facet of filmmaking. Their expert opinions in their respective fields were absolutely not to be underestimated. Most importantly, there was a massive overlap between the voters participating in the various guild awards and the voters for the Oscar categories.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards, which had the relatively lowest voting threshold and the grandest ceremony, had correctly "predicted" the Oscar acting awards fifty-seven times since its inception in 1995. Over the past ten years, its overlap with the Oscars had reached a staggering ninety-two percent. Likewise, the "Best Picture" awarded by the Producers Guild of America had aligned with the views of the School's voters for eleven consecutive years.

Numbers didn't lie, and they served as the best proof: the major guild awards were the Oscar bellwethers in the truest sense of the word.

Then there were the Golden Globe Awards.

This so-called "Oscar bellwether," which was the most familiar to the general public, was given absolutely no weight within the inner circles of the industry.

The Golden Globe Awards were hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, an organization that had zero intersection with the School Faction to begin with. To put it nicely, it represented the consensus of foreign journalists stationed in Hollywood; to put it harshly, it was just a massive dinner party thrown by a bunch of journalists hovering on the fringes of Hollywood who wanted an excuse to eat with movie stars. They beautifully dubbed themselves an "Oscar bellwether," and to increase their prediction accuracy, they even split the awards into two categories: "Drama" and "Comedy/Musical."

But in reality, their odds of "guessing" the winner of the Golden Statuette were lower than Duke's odds of flipping a coin blindfolded.

Of course, if one just treated it as a highlight reel of jokes to warm up for the Oscars, it was still wonderfully entertaining.

Having locked down their main targets among the bellwether awards, the group discussed a few more details before Penny Kalis brought up their opponent's greatest advantage. "Among the people I've contacted, many hold a very favorable impression of Natalie Portman. On one hand, it's the positive public image she has cultivated over a long time; on the other hand, her performance in Black Swan was truly stunning. Building on that foundation is the fact that she is pregnant, which heavily influences how many people perceive her."

Whether Duke's side wanted to admit it or not, this was where Natalie Portman's advantage lay.

Moreover, after the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes announced their nominations, Natalie Portman noticeably increased her public exposure. Her figure, complete with a protruding pregnant belly, could be seen across numerous media outlets and television programs.

This was undoubtedly Natalie Portman's trump card.

However, from the day he received the relevant news, Duke had already thought of a few solutions. Perhaps he couldn't completely cancel out the sympathy points she was scoring, but they would definitely have some effect.

He shot a glance at Tina Fey behind him. She picked up two file folders and handed them over to Penny Kalis and Nancy Josephson respectively.

"This is the dossier on Benjamin Millepied's ex-girlfriend. My people have already contacted her," Duke continued, watching them open the folders. "She is a Broadway actress who lost the battle over him to Natalie Portman. Word has it that the key reason Benjamin Millepied chose Natalie Portman and abandoned her was precisely because Natalie Portman got pregnant."

As she listened to Duke and flipped through the files, Penny Kalis's eyes gradually lit up. "A Broadway actress? And she's very ambitious and career-minded, wanting to transition into Hollywood?"

She suddenly let out a laugh. "There are a lot of things we can do. My only fear was that she wouldn't have any ambition."

Closing the dossier, Penny Kalis exchanged opinions with Nancy Josephson for a moment before saying to Duke, "Leave this matter to me. I'll handle it."

Duke nodded, then turned to Nancy Josephson. "From now on, directly forward any intelligence coming over from Natalie Portman's side to Penny."

Duke had been making targeted preparations for a long time. Even though the film wouldn't officially hit theaters until the end of the year, the related groundwork had already begun well in advance.

In past Oscars, the major studios might have only run PR campaigns targeting the awards themselves. But since entering the new century, while campaigning for themselves, many were also smearing their competitors. For example, during the run of last year's Best Picture winner, The Hurt Locker, one of its producers had continuously called voters and forwarded emails to disparage and smear Avatar...

The School stipulated that PR campaigns could not employ tactics that belittled opponents in order to elevate oneself. But while that rule might have been respected fifteen years ago, the methods for disparaging competitors through the media and other channels were now endless.

In reality, no one could use solid evidence to definitively prove where those smear articles in the media actually originated.

With only a month left until the School announced the Oscar nominations, all the studios intent on competing for an Oscar had intensified their PR and promotional efforts. Quite a few aggressive smear articles had emerged in the midst of it all. As one of the top favorites with exploding word-of-mouth, Gravity was inevitably dragged into the fray.