“Avatar” has its Oscar nomination — now it just has to get by “Top Gun,” “All Quiet,” “The Batman,” and “Wakanda Forever.”
We will update all our Oscar predictions throughout the season, so keep checking IndieWire for the latest news from the 2023 Oscar race. The nomination round of voting will take place from January 12 to January 17, 2023, with the official Oscar nominations announced on January 24, 2023. The final voting is between March 2 and 7, 2023. Finally, the 95th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 12, and air live on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET/ 5:00 p.m. PT.
See our initial thoughts for what to expect at the 95th Academy Awards here.
The State of the Race
James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” swept all nine categories in an unprecedented tsunami Wednesday at the 21st annual VES Awards (held at the Beverly Hilton). This beats the previous record of six prizes that the original “Avatar” earned in 2010. Although its dominance was unanticipated, the record 14 nominations for “The Way of Water” was an early sign, with the film earning multiple nods in several categories.
Although the VES has not been the best VFX Oscar barometer of late — only twice in the last six years has its winner gone on to take home the Academy Award — this is a done deal, considering the unanimous praise bestowed on Wētā FX by its industry peers for delivering such an innovative follow-up to “Avatar” amidst its global box office success.
In addition to the top photoreal feature prize, “The Way of Water” also took home animated character (Sigourney Weaver’s Kiri), environment (The Reef), virtual cinematography, model (The Sea Dragon mothership), effects simulations (water), compositing & lighting (water integration), special practical effects (current machine and wave pool), and, the newest category introduced this year, The Emerging Technology Award (water toolset).
Cameron presented the VES Lifetime Achievement Award to acclaimed producer and former wife Gale Anne Hurd (“The Terminator,” “Aliens,” “The Abyss,” “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” “Armageddon,” and “The Walking Dead” series). The VES also presented the VES Board of Directors Award to former Executive Director Eric Roth.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s “Thirteen Lives” took supporting visual effects, and Netflix’s “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” — the Best Animated Feature Oscar favorite — was named top animated film, winning three awards (including character animation for the titular wooden puppet and the environment inside the Sea Monster).
In sweeping the VES, “The Way of Water” convincingly beat Oscar-nominated “The Batman” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” as well as “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” and “Jurassic World: Dominion” for the top prize. The other two Oscar nominees are “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which was snubbed by the VES, and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” which earned a VES nom for its water effects simulations (also created by Wētā).
There’s a reason why “Way of the Water” is the prohibitive favorite. Led by Wētā’s four-time Oscar-winning senior visual effects supervisor Joe Letteri, the ocean-centric sequel featured groundbreaking underwater performance capture, a rebuilt global simulation tool set (including an FX water and fire system called Loki) for a new level of photorealism, and a game-changing muscle-based facial animation system called APFS (Anatomically Plausible Facial System).
Two other Oscar contenders featured FX work by Wētā: “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (led by production VFX supervisor Chris White) and “The Batman” (production supervised by Dan Lemmon). “Wakanda Forever” director Ryan Coogler wanted realistic water with lots of murk, so Wētā took special care to ensure the scenes below water were as realistic as those above water. For “The Batman,” Wētā used its virtual production prowess to complete the rainy Batmobile freeway chase with Penguin and worked out timing, composition, and CG action beats. In addition, ILM (led by VFX supervisor Russell Earl) set up a customized pop-up, “Mandalorian”-style StageCraft LED volume to add unfinished skylines to a reimagined Gothic-inspired Gotham.
Joseph Kosinki’s high-octane “Top Gun: Maverick” contained the best supporting VFX of the season (principally done by Method — now part of Framestore — and production supervised by Ryan Tudhope) and entailed 2,400 shots, with lots of comps matte paintings, environment and sky replacement, plate augmentation and cleanup, and full CG jets after takeoff and during dogfights. The final nominee, Edward Berger’s anti-war epic “All Quiet on the Western Front,” similarly boasted supporting VFX. Production VFX supervisor Frank Petzold took a naturalistic approach that treated the smoke and tanks of battle as creatures of war; the latter was handled with CG animation.
Below are the nominees ranked in order of likelihood of winning:
“Avatar: The Way of Water” (20th Century/Disney)
“Top Gun: Maverick” (Paramount)
“All Quiet on the Western Front” (Netflix)
“The Batman” (Warner Bros.)
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (Disney/Marvel)
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