Avatar: The Way of Water got nominated for Academy Awards and has reached the 2 billion dollar mark at the Box Office collection. Directed by James Cameron, it follows the life of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Neytri (Zoe Saldaña), and their four children Neteyam, Kiri, Lo’ak, and Tuktirey. The Sully family has to explore the lands of Pandora when they are faced with threats from the past. Jake takes on the task to save innocent creatures from humans.
Avatar 1 and 2 were nominated for the Oscars
James Cameron has directed three of the highest-grossing films of all time starting with Titanic, Avatar, and now Avatar: The Way of Water, and all of them were nominated for the prestigious Academy Awards. James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) was honored with nine Academy Award nominations and won three, for cinematography, art direction (now production design), and visual effects. It was also nominated for best picture, director, film editing, sound editing, sound mixing, and music.
Cameron’s film The Way of Water is nominated for Academy Award for Best Picture, Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, Academy Award for Best Sound, and Academy Award for Best Production Design.
It is highly likely that the movie will take home the VFX Oscar, it appears. The groundbreaking work was directed by senior VFX supervisor Joe Letteri of the top VFX studio Weta FX, a four-time Oscar winner in the category. Among its innovations was underwater performance capture.
This has led the fans of Cameron’s franchise to troll one of the biggest cinematic universes of Hollywood, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for having far fewer Oscar nominations compared to the Avatar franchise.
Avatar franchise:
2 Best Picture noms / 2 Films—–BARRIER—–
MCU franchise:
1 Best Picture nom / 30 Films— Francesco | #BizaShak (@francescoshak) January 24, 2023
the ONLY person ever to be nominated for their performance in a Marvel film at the OSCARS. pic.twitter.com/dlq24WK10l
— thee nice guy (@thescarletprint) January 24, 2023
Marvel is not cinema
— The Anime Guy. (@elanimeguy) January 24, 2023
Avatar 2 got 4 Oscars nominations & reached over $2 Billion worldwide box office, one of the most successful movies of all time & the most successful of this decade 🥳 💫 @TheAcademy #AvatarTheWayOfWater #loak #art pic.twitter.com/1jMrhM8ElE
— adrieo (@jfjfhfjfjfh) January 25, 2023
Deserved to win
— 🧣 (@corneil_ri) January 24, 2023
avatar 2 is taking it…if not for their incredible acting, for visual effects for sure
— adi 🪐 (@augustsgroove) January 24, 2023
The only Avatars I know are the best fan base https://t.co/2DtHVcKamk
— D&D IS COMING 1/27 (@TheKing0f_Pop) January 24, 2023
The Oscars are a joke but I guess it's good they included movies people actually watched this time. But I doubt those Hollywood snobs will let Avatar 2 or Maverick win.
— Tony Polanco (@Romudeth) January 24, 2023
There is also a high chance that Avatar: Way of Water will win the best picture. This will make James Cameron one of the biggest directors to ever work in Hollywood, he would have won 3 Oscars in the Best Picture category.
Marvel’s first film to win an Oscar
Even though Marvel is a celebrated and loved franchise, with intricately woven stories and superheroes that relate to the audiences it has not done well at the Oscars. Black Panther (2018) became the Superhero first film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, it also became the first MCU film to win the Oscars.
James Cameron’s supporters slandered the franchise for churning out more than 30 films but receiving just one nomination. The slander feels unfair because the Oscars have more often than not shied away from genre films especially superhero films as they are not considered cinema. However, cinema was never bound by the definition of any institution or organization, films like Avengers: Endgame united millions and billions of people all over the world becoming the second highest-grossing film of all time.
A mega-franchise, by its very nature, minimizes a director’s vision so that a production fits with the total. They also reward auteur directors, such as Peter Jackson of Return of the King. And while exceptions to this rule include performers like Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix, the character-driven movies of the MCU sometimes don’t provide actors enough opportunities to stand out in a way that Academy voters find appealing. Despite this, the MCU has had some success in getting nominations in technical categories, and one movie, Black Panther, has even taken home many awards.
Source: Twitter
