🎧 Can Neon’s Oscar Winning Streak Continue?
My special five-part fall movie preview starts with the ‘Anora’ studio’s next best shot
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Last week brought the unveiling of the full lineups for both the Toronto and Venice film festivals, and with it, a pretty strong sense of where some of the year’s most anticipated movies will premiere — plus, an insight into how strongly filmmakers and strategists feel about their films this year.
Yes, it’s still all a lot of educated guesswork and informed rumor right now (although most sharp observers can work out the upcoming Telluride lineup, even though the fest doesn’t release its offical schedule until the day before it starts; have a nice time in the mountains, Chloé Zhao, Edward Berger and Richard Linklater!). But that is what makes this time of year so fun and the perfect moment to look ahead, which we’ll be doing with a new five-part series on the podcast from now until the end of August. Each week, a different special guest will join Christopher Rosen and me to take a close look at the top studios’ players this awards season and what to expect from the campaigners’ awards season playbooks.
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To kick things off, we’re joined by Vanity Fair’s David Canfield, focusing on just a single studio: Neon, the reigning best picture champion. Fresh off its win for Anora (the second for a company that hasn’t even existed for a decade — pretty impressive!), Neon went on an acquisition streak at the most recent Cannes Film Festival. It eventually went home with not just the Palme d’Or winner (Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident) but two more prize-winners, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value (which Neon had picked up for North American distribution during the Cannes Film Festival last year) and Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent.
Neon is justifiably proud of what’s now a six-year streak of backing the Palme d’Or winner, and with Anora having followed in Parasite’s footsteps and taken the best picture Oscar after the Palme, the studio really does seem to have cracked the code for translating international film festival buzz into real awards votes. But can Neon do it again with any of these titles this year? Is the competition from the likes of A24 and Mubi, studios often competing to pick up the same titles, enough to keep the Neon team nimble — or is it standing in their way? And with Sentimental Value looking like the strongest Oscar contender in this lineup, can they please, please finally get Stellan Skarsgård the Oscar attention he’s long deserved?
David, Chris and I get into all of that and much more, and you can probably hear how excited we are for Oscar season to be truly starting in earnest. Join us on the episode, and check back next week for another deep dive, this time on the studio-owned indie labels that are trying hard to make Oscar history this year.
Don’t forget that this Friday brings the official launch of Prestige Junkie After Party! Subscribe for just $5 a month and get weekly bonus content from me and Chris, plus video versions of the main podcast and many more perks to come. We’ll be kicking off this Friday with a subscriber-only podcast episode explaining all the awards season real talk we hope to bring you this year, plus our hottest takes about the blockbusters aiming to be part of this year’s race. You don’t want to miss it — and, honestly, you can’t afford to miss it either. Subscribe here.
