The beginning of the year is an exciting time for movie lovers. AWARDS SEASON!! The glamor, the glitz (I don’t even know what glitz is, but I wish I had it) and of course, the validation of being better than everyone else!
This year could be a special one for fans of CBMs because many of our favorite faces have shots at winning gold. Everyone’s talking about the former Daredevil (Ben Affleck) and his work on
Argo. Jennifer “Mystique” Lawrence has serious buzz from
The Silver Linings Playbook. And of course, Wolverine himself Hugh Jackman, and Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) could finally get major gold for owning
Les Miserables.
This got me thinking about Comic Book Movies, and wondering about their place when it comes to prestige in the cinematic community. After crunching some numbers, I think it’s interesting to take a look at which actors, directors, movies, and full franchises hold the most award winners or award nominees. In the spirit of awards season, I’ve decided to share some of these fun facts.
The numbers come as of the end of the 2012 year, and I will even count awards won after an actor made an appearance in a movie, as it is still an indication of the talent involved with the project. I’m sticking basically with The Academy Awards and The Golden Globes, since they seem to be the big two at this time of year. TV’s Emmys won’t count, and I’m ignoring specialty recognizers like The Director’s Guild or SAG awards.
Check out some of these crazy stats!
If we were to add the total number of wins and nominations of both the Oscars and Golden Globes, for actors, directors, and movies themselves, it might come as no surprise that the BATMAN franchise dominates over all its peers by more than half! Sure they’ve had the most movies, but it still speaks volumes about the property as something Hollywood’s best and brightest are always attracted to. Through 7 films, they’ve got 19 Oscars, 56 Oscar noms, 31 Golden Globes and 95 Globe noms under their belt.
Take a look at the greatest Hollywood elites to have appeared in a comic book movie. Just on Oscars , Jack Nicholson’s 3 wins, and Warren Beatty’s 13 (!) nominations are nothing to scoff at.
Interestingly, across 4 movies, the Spider-Man franchise houses 5 Oscars, 10 Oscar nods, 6 Globes, and 32 Globe nods . The Crow is also a 4 movie franchise and they have 0. No wait- Kirsten Dunst was in one. She’s a GG nominee for
Interview with the Vampire. I guess that makes 1. Ha.
If you’re wondering how The Punisher series even got on here, thank appearances from John Travolta (2 Oscar noms, 2 Globe wins, and 5 Globe nominations) and Louis Gossett Jr (1 Oscar win, 2 Globe wins and 3 Globe nominations)
Every principle character in Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is either an Oscar/Golden Globe winner or nominee except for Katie Holmes (and Tom Hardy).
The only individual film to win an Academy Award for Team Marvel is
Spider-Man (Visual FX). Team DC, however has wins from
Batman (Art Direction),
Superman (Visual FX),
Road to Perdition (Cinematography), and 2 for
The Dark Knight (Supporting Actor, Sound Editing).
For one of the most decorated comic books ever written,
Watchmen’s movie adaptation has only one decorated name attached: Jackie Earl Haley (an Oscar nom for
Little Children).
Combined, the awards of the 3 lead cast members of
Wanted dwarfs the entire Blade Trilogy.
With a whopping 120 honors,
Dick Tracy dominates as the single comic book movie with the most decorated talent: Beatty, Hoffman, Pacino, Katy Bates, James Caan, Estelle Parsons, and even friggin Dick Van Dyke bring the goods to this party!
Natalie Portman and William Hurt have both appeared in two each, but the Academy Award winner to appear in the most CBMs? Tommy Lee Jones (Batman Forever, Men in Black, Captain America)
Even with Avengers lumping everything together, based on awards and nominations, the Iron Man series still makes up almost half of all the prestige in the Marvel Cinematic Universe!
What can we take away from this? While not always the case, it seems in most of these cases, quality begets quality.
V for Vendetta, A History of Violence, the cream rises to the top, and the best of these films featured the players to back it up. This certainly bodes well for upcoming features like
Man of Steel and
Iron Man 3 (Ben Kinglsey!), and it’s something to keep in mind as we watch the awards this year; CBMs have more class than some might give them credit for, and it looks like the whole genre is getting ready to turn a serious corner!