“What was the song of the sirens like?”
When it comes to Oscar voters, like Odysseus, the answer is: “All the things you wanted to be.”
The Oscar race for 2027 seems to have found its center of gravity, and its front-runner that will be shepherded under the Universal banner. Christopher Nolan‘s “The Odyssey,” the Homer adaptation that shattered the director’s own global opening record with $264 million worldwide, began its formal courtship of Academy voters this week with a series of member screenings on both coasts and abroad. If the early temperature reading is correct, and the buzz holds, the film enters the fall corridor as the one everybody else has to beat.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hosted its first members screening on Saturday at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles, presented in 70mm. The roughly 1,000-seat house was near capacity, an early tell in a season where turnout becomes its own form of polling. The U.K. membership, which has become an instrumental voting bloc as AMPAS has gone more international, followed on Monday at the Soho Hotel. And for members in New York City, they enjoyed the journey back to Ithaca on Wednesday in 35mm.
Not surprisingly, the reactions from several members who were in attendance were borderline reverential.
“I didn’t think anything could top ‘Oppenheimer’ and Chris’ [Nolan] first film Following,’” says one veteran Academy member in attendance. “He is the definitive filmmaker of our time.”
That kind of enthusiasm and language matters. Nolan has spent the better part of two decades as the most commercially dominant filmmaker the Oscars could not quite bring themselves to reward, until the 2024 historical biopic “Oppenheimer” swept its season and took home best picture and gave him his first directing statuette. Voters do not typically hand a filmmaker multiple coronations, especially in close succession. They do, however, reward a body of work that keeps elevating, and “The Odyssey,” the first feature shot entirely on Imax cameras, is elevated by design.
Not everyone came away without any reservations, though the caveats were still incredibly affectionate rather than damaging.
“I thought it was spectacular,” another anonymous Academy voter says. “A little bit long but massive in scale.”
Melinda Sue Gordon
The most consequential conversation will be happening inside of the actors branch, the largest voting bloc in the Academy and the one that decides which performances graduate from admired to nominated. Matt Damon leads an ensemble that includes Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, John Leguizamo and Jon Bernthal. At least one branch member who skipped the official screening and bought a ticket instead came away doing the math on the rest of the calendar.
“This was like the NBA All-Star game of acting,” the actor says. “Matt [Damon], both ‘Johns’ [Bernthal and Leguizamo], Rob [Pattinson], Anne [Hathaway] were incredible. Good luck to those of us that have movies coming out the rest of the year.”
Ensembles of this size historically cannibalize their own campaigns, splitting supporting votes into confetti. But a lead is a different equation, and Damon, who has one competitive Oscar for co-writing “Good Will Hunting” (1997) and two acting nominations across a 30-year career — “Invictus” and “The Martian” — is suddenly the beneficiary of the biggest opening of his life.
A veteran artisan who attended describes crying twice, and the two moments they cite are telling, because neither is a battle sequence.
“I became so emotional when he [Matt Damon] hears the Sirens, and when he pets his beautiful dog,” the member says. “I think Matt has to win the Oscar. He has to.”
Argos the dog’s scene landing that hard is also providing the detailed campaign that strategists dream about. Spectacle gets a film nominated, but intimacy and emotion inside them is what gets performers recognized, and a movie ultimately crowned.
Variety already offered its thoughts about how well this film could perform during the awards season. While anyone with eyes and ears can feel the passion and overwhelming adoration for the mythological epic, it further cements those feelings when you hear from the voters who will decide how well this will do.
But there is a long road ahead. Telluride, Venice and Toronto are still to come, with multiple dramas, comedies, genres and under-the-radar projects that could offer “The Odyssey” a viable challenger. And while the fall prestige slate has not been revealed, the Academy membership has a habit of falling for a summer release in July and then being distracted by new, shiny objects in January. Nolan’s own “Dunkirk,” a summer release with eight nominations, lost best picture to a December fable by Guillermo del Toro.
Still, the difference between admiration and momentum is usually measured in whether members show up, and whether they talk afterward. This week, according to various sources, they did both.