L.A. Fires Upend the Oscars
I talk to strategists and filmmakers whose awards hopes are dwarfed by their anxieties over a city's staggering losses
In the past five years Hollywood has become soberingly familiar with the last-minute pivot. Film festivals canceled or moved entirely online amid a fast-moving virus. Actors hustled off premiere red carpets ahead of an impending strike; movies pulled from international screens because of the outbreak of war. Movies are forever, but the world is increasingly uncertain.
None of this made it any easier to absorb the cascading impacts of the Los Angeles wildfires over the past week, which have ground nearly every aspect of the business to a halt. My colleagues at The Ankler have been reporting on the industry’s response and collecting stories from folks living through it; if you have a story to share with us, please be in touch.
Among those affected, of course, are people who until very recently thought they’d be spending this past week focused on the final push of awards season’s so-called phase 1 (when eligible films vie to be among those nominated). For the Oscar hopefuls who live in Los Angeles, and the strategists and publicists who support them, the past few days have been eerily quiet.
It’s not just the big splashy events — the AFI Luncheon, the Critics Choice Awards — that have been postponed. Dozens of screenings, Q&As, interviews, premieres and other smaller gatherings have been canceled, both in New York and Los Angeles, taking away valuable 11th-hour opportunities to grab the attention of voters whose attention is now undeniably and understandably elsewhere.
Oscar’s phase 1 technically now goes until Fri., Jan. 17, with the Academy extending the nominations voting window to account for the chaos of the wildfires. It’s an indication of just how uncertain things have been that the deadline was initially moved to Tuesday, and then pushed back another three days this morning. The nominations announcement, originally rescheduled for Sunday, will now happen as a virtual event on Thurs., Jan. 23. The annual nominees luncheon, previously set for Feb. 10 and among the most beloved traditions of the awards calendar, has been canceled entirely.
In truth, though, phase 1 came to a harsh close a week ago, when the Palisades Fire first broke out and plunged the city into this ongoing nightmare. How can anyone be expected to put on a screener, or watch a Q&A dutifully posted online, when they’re refreshing the Watch Duty app every five minutes?
No Crying Over Awards Season
The awards strategists I spoke to, after confirming they were safe, were resigned to this sudden, terrifying end to awards season — and as preoccupied with the fires as anybody else. “You can’t cry over it, there’s so many more important things that are happening,” one told me. Another strategist pointed out that it had felt like the first proper awards season in five years — following the Covid years and the strikes — until the fires began raging.
Some people are still completing scheduled interviews — you can listen to my conversation with Golden Globe winner Fernanda Torres about her work in I’m Still Here on my special edition of the podcast from this past weekend — and pre-planned features and FYC blasts are still rolling out. There’s an unavoidable, unfortunate disconnect to all of it, when a headline about, say, a film’s elaborate and painstaking production design sits right alongside one about thousands of decimated homes.
But awards season is still happening, and given the increasingly international bent of the Academy and the global sprawl of the movie business, there are possibly more voters watching this all play out from a distance than feeling the impact of it directly.
So how will those people vote, and what kind of impact will we notice when the nominations are announced — we hope — next week? It’s all speculation at this point, of course, but the race was starting to take a clearer shape before all of this, and there’s at least a little extrapolation we can do. As I’ve been texting so many people in the awards world over the past week, the race is far from top of mind. But if you can’t help yourself from thinking about it anyway — and hey, maybe this is welcome distraction? — let’s do some punditry.
Moore to Love
When I went to update my predictions on the Ankler Pundits page, I was shocked to realize that before last Sunday I had Demi Moore hanging in there in fifth place, possibly squeaking in with a nomination for her lead role in The Substance but still vulnerable to being knocked out by another contender.
What a difference a speech makes! Moore may have been the biggest winner of the entire Golden Globes on Jan. 5 and has gone from a worthy contender — for everyone I’ve talked to, at least — the presumptive frontrunner.
Moore’s was the kind of Golden Globe win that only happens once in a while but carries an immense power. Watching her onstage holding her statuette, expressing her gratitude for finally being recognized after such a long, topsy-turvy career, something seemed to click into place. Sure, Cynthia Erivo represents the more popular movie, Mikey Madison is more of a breakout star, Marianne Jean-Baptiste has more critical acclaim and Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie are already Oscar winners. But not one of them has a narrative to match Moore’s comeback story, which is precisely what propelled Brendan Fraser, Renee Zellweger and Ke Huy Quan to victories in recent years.
Moore’s speech may be one of the few things anybody winds up remembering about the 2025 Globes (if even) given what’s happened since, which ought to work in her favor in a still-crowded best actress race. Torres, who also won a best actress Golden Globe (in the drama lane), had her moment in the spotlight as well, but her film, I’m Still Here, is only in a handful of theaters and has been relying on the boost from awards attention to get voters to watch it before the deadline. Might they now be too distracted to press play?
It’s the underdogs, unfortunately, who might wind up suffering the most from the distorted final weeks of Phase 1. Last Wednesday’s SAG Awards nominations brought surprise nods for Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis for The Last Showgirl, a Roadside Attractions release with a fraction of the awards season budget boasted by the biggest contenders. It should have been a huge moment for both actresses, particularly for Curtis, who has been nowhere in this awards season previously but definitely knows how to campaign.
The SAG announcement was also a shot in the arm for Jeremy Strong, nominated for his work in the similarly tiny indie The Apprentice, as well as supporting actress contenders Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown) and Danielle Deadwyler (The Piano Lesson), who had both missed out on Golden Globe nominations.
But instead of the usual wave of “I’m so grateful” press releases and hurried reaction phone calls with the SAG-nominated talent, nominees and strategists wisely stayed quiet; it was only hours later, after all, that the Sunset Fire broke out and evacuated the Hollywood Hills.
What’s Next as L.A. Burns
In some ways, you already know the state of the race if you watched the Golden Globes. Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist are riding high, Conclave has that screenplay win to prove it’s still in the mix, Anora is trying to convert its critical success into victory, and Wicked is trying to become not just popular, but also Academy-acclaimed.
The Globes should have been the kickoff to a busy week of buzz and hobnobbing at events from the New York Film Critics Circle dinner (which did go on as scheduled on Wednesday) to the Critics Choice Awards, another televised stage with the potential for emotional speeches. The Globes are only part of the picture, but they’re pretty much the only part we’ve got right now.
The Academy was always going to go its own way with its nominations, and there will be shifts in store, whether or not the wildfires actually affect the tally. As much as the Oscars may be in need of rescuing themselves (see my colleague Richard Rushfield’s recommended cures for what ails them), the nominations will arrive next week as a bit of a balm — a reminder of what’s worth celebrating, for when we feel ready to celebrate again.