Where are all the 2008 Oscar contenders?

It's the first week of October, the second week of fall, and the third week after the Toronto Film Festival.... Do you know where your awards contenders are?

By this time last year, almost every film that would go on to earn at least one nomination in a Big 8 category (picture, director, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, adapted screenplay and original screenplay) had already been widely screened:

Toronto (prior year): "Away from Her"
Sundance: "The Savages" (also Toronto)
Spring: "La Vie En Rose"
Cannes: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (also Telluride and Toronto), "No Country for Old Men" (also Toronto)
Summer: "Ratatouille"
Telluride: "Into the Wild" (also Toronto), "Juno" (also Toronto)
Venice: "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (also Toronto), "Atonement" (also Toronto), "I'm Not There" (also Toronto), "In the Valley of Elah" (also Toronto), "Michael Clayton" (also Toronto)
Toronto: "Eastern Promises," "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "Lars and the Real Girl"
Early fall: "Gone Baby Gone"

There were only four eventual Big 8 nominees that we had not seen at this point last year: "American Gangster," "Charlie Wilson's War," "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" and "There Will Be Blood," which in the end collectively accounted for only one Big 8 Oscar win.

By all indications, 2008 is shaping up very, very differently. At this point, the press and public have seen only a select few films with any legitimate Big 8 hopes (based on my personal analysis of each film, its reception, and its studio's declared intentions for it). Here is a listing of those:

Toronto (prior year): "The Visitor"
Sundance: "Frozen River"
Cannes: "Changeling," "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Summer: "The Dark Knight," "WALL-E"
Telluride: "Happy-Go-Lucky" (also Toronto), "Rachel Getting Married" (also Toronto), "Slumdog Millionaire" (also Toronto)
Venice: "The Wrestler" (also Toronto)
Toronto: "The Duchess," "I've Loved You So Long," "The Secret Life of Bees"

Not all of them will end up earning a Big 8 nomination, but even if they all did, the 2008 list would still be notably shorter than 2007. What's going on?

From discussions with high-ranking publicists representing several studios, I've gathered that there is a growing fear of showing one's cards too early. Granted, it worked last year for eventual best picture winner "No Country for Old Men," which screened at Cannes and Toronto before going away until its nationwide release on Nov. 21, but more often than not it is a no-win situation: If the film is poorly received at the outset, then it is almost impossible to restore goodwill toward it later on. (For instance, "Blindness" was trashed by some at Cannes this year, then re-edited and heavily re-promoted in advance of its reappearance in Toronto, but generated little interest there.) And if the film is well-received, then the studio and filmmakers are tasked with trying to preserve the positive buzz for months thereafter, something that requires an enormous amount of time, effort and money—and is almost impossible to do. The fact of the matter is that interest and enthusiasm wane with the passage of time and with the release of later films that render the earlier release what it really is: yesterday's news.

Instead, studios seem to be gravitating toward what might be called a shock-and-awe strategy, in which they effectively bet all of their chips on the fact that a last-minute release will not only find but also wow an audience. These can come in two varieties: the sneak attack, like "Million Dollar Baby," which wasn't even a part of the awards discussion for most of the season because it wasn't announced as a 2004 release until late in the game; or the hype-and-pray, like "There Will Be Blood," which was always scheduled for an end-of-the-year release, which everyone consequently knew about, and which therefore needed to—and did—instantly make a favorable impression because there would be virtually no time to try to curry favor or reframe the dialogue about it.

Studios are trying harder than ever to keep expectations in check for all of their contenders. It's not that they don't want people to get excited about them; it's that they don't want people to get excited about them too early. This concern seems well-founded when you consider that over the past five years, none of the films that were regarded as the early favorites have quite panned out: "Big Fish" (2003), "Cold Mountain" (2003), "The Phantom of the Opera" (2004), "Munich" (2005), "Dreamgirls" (2006), "Atonement" (2007), and "Charlie Wilson's War" (2007) were all sure bets to win best picture ... except none did.

Instead, studio publicists tell me that they actually are much more comfortable if their top contender is not perceived to be the front-runner this early in the season. To put it in the terms of a horse race: They want their contender to be able to gather the momentum necessary to emerge from the pack soon, but not so soon that the momentum cannot be sustained to the finish—the start academy voting.

Consider, as they have, the nationwide release dates for the winners of the Academy Award for best picture over the past 10 years, or since Harvey Weinstein ushered in the era of the cutthroat Oscar campaign with his best picture win for underdog "Shakespeare in Love" over presumptive favorite "Saving Private Ryan":

1998 "Shakespeare in Love" (nationwide 1/8/99)
1999 "American Beauty" (nationwide 10/1/99)
2000 "Gladiator" (nationwide 5/5/00)
2001 "A Beautiful Mind" (nationwide 1/4/02)
2002 "Chicago" (nationwide 1/24/03)
2003 "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (12/17/03)
2004 "Million Dollar Baby" (12/15/04)
2005 "Crash" (5/6/05)
2006 "The Departed" (10/6/06)
2007 "No Country for Old Men" (11/21/07)

Clearly, there are two types of awards strategies:

The late drop — Eight of the aforementioned 10 films were released nationwide after the start of October, and only two of them were shown to a large audience before that date ("American Beauty" in Toronto and "No Country" in Cannes and Toronto, respectively).
The late pickup — The two of these 10 that were released nationwide prior to the start of October, "Gladiator" and "Crash," were able to muster unlikely victories over later releases thanks mostly to brilliantly run publicity campaigns.

Both types of awards strategies can work, which is why some studios are already employing the late pickup and trying to revive interest in early releases through deliberately timed screener mailings ("Frozen River" was the first out on Sept. 27, and "Elegy" was close behind on Sept. 30); DVD releases ("The Visitor" is due out next Tuesday, and "WALL-E" will be out on Nov. 19); and even theatrical re-releases ("The Dark Knight" will be back in January, no doubt prior to the Jan. 12 deadline for academy members to return their ballots). And over the weeks and months ahead, one can safely expect a blitzkrieg of other screeners, screenings, and events promoting these films and others that showed their hand early.

Still, most studios now prefer to play it safe(r) and go with the late drop. It's more economical, in terms of time, effort, and money, and it's why we almost certainly have yet to see the vast majority of this year's eventual Big 8 nominees—not at Sundance, Cannes, Telluride, Venice, Toronto or anywhere else. Those will likely come from the following dozen films, listed in order of their nationwide release date, which have yet to be shown to any large audience: "The Soloist" (11/21), "Australia" (11/26), "The Road" (11/26), "Frost/Nixon" (12/5), "Milk" (12/5), "Defiance" (12/12), "Doubt" (12/12), "The Reader" (12/12), "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (12/19), "Seven Pounds" (12/19), "Gran Torino" (12/25), and "Revolutionary Road" (12/26).

The Feinberg Files by Scott Feinberg

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