Infinity War cleans up at People’s Choice Awards, sets sights on the Oscars
By Dan Selcke
Avengers: Infinity War is the story of superheroes and supervillains battling for the fate of the universe. But that’s nothing compared to the battle executives at Disney will wage for the next several months: it’s time for awards season.
The People’s Choice Awards, the spaced out stepchild of the season, went down last night. On the movie side of things, it was all about Marvel superheroes, with Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman winning the award for Movie Actor of 2018 and Danai Gurira (Okoye) winning for Action Star of 2018. Meanwhile, Scarlett Johannson took home the prize for Female Movie Star of 2018 for her role as Black Widow in Infinity War, while the movie itself won awards for Action Movie of 2018 and Movie of 2018. Meanwhile, dark horse Shadowhunters took top TV honors, due in large part to a passionate fandom that rallied after Freeform cancelled the show. The second half of the third and final season will air early next year.
The People’s Choice Awards are a good time and Shadowhunter’s success the feel-good story of the last few minutes, but Marvel and Disney have their sights set higher. While Disney has been pushing Black Panther as a potential Oscar contender for a while now, it just updated its For Your Consideration page for Infinity War with a gaggle of new suggested awards, including Best Director for Joe and Anthony Russo and Best Adapted Screenplay for Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Before, Disney was only suggesting a Best Visual Effects award. The company isn’t suggesting Infinity War win Best Picture, as it is with Black Panther, but give it a minute.
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Superhero movies are the biggest thing in film right now, and they don’t come much bigger than Infinity War, the fourth highest-grossing movie in history. But superhero flicks have had a hard time breaking into the genteel Academy Awards, whose voters prize movies about high-minded subjects like fish romance. The closest a superhero movie has come to Oscar acceptance is when Heath Ledger won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his turn as the Joker in The Dark Knight.
But maybe this is the year all that changes. The Academy has been making a push to get younger voters on the rolls, and both Black Panther and Infinity War went over well with audiences and critics alike. Plus, how long can the Academy ignore movies that have such mass appeal? Sure, awards are pointless in the end, but also they’re shiny and we want Captain America or whoever to have one.
The 91st Annual Academy Awards air on February 24 of 2019.
Finally, as long as we’re talking about Marvel, let’s take a moment to remember comics luminary Stan Lee, who created (in collaboration with other writers and artists) characters like Spider-Man, the Hulk, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, the X-Men, Thor, Iron Man and others. Basically, without him, the superhero revolution wouldn’t be possible.
Lee died today at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. He was 95.
A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin was a big fan of Lee’s. Here’s a fan letter Martin sent in 1961, at age 16:
"Fan Mail George R.R Martin(Age 16)sent to Stan Lee, R.I.P Stan Lee from freefolk"
Rest in peace, Stan Lee. Thanks for everything.
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h/t SyfyWire, The A.V. Club