Wallfisch composed the scores for last year's Best
Picture nominee Hidden Figures and the coming IT remake.
Even the original soundtrack from Benjamin Wallfisch (who has worked on the harrowing 12 Years a Slave and most recently Best
Picture nominee Hidden Figures) is deeply unsettling, featuring angelic hymns from young women and ominous notes that heighten the eeriness of every single scene.
Not exact matches
Oscar 2017 can boast that four of its nine Best
Picture nominees (Fences,
Hidden Figures, Lion, Moonlight) directly address the experience of people of color.
This year, three of the nine Best
Picture nominees (Moonlight, Fences and
Hidden Figures) have a primarily Black cast, with Joi McMillon becoming the first Black
nominee for Best Film Editing for Moonlight.
Another note: The last Best
Picture winner nominated for Best Art Direction to LOSE said award was «Gladiator» (which lost to fellow Best
Picture nominee «Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon»).
Winners that went on to make the list of Best
Picture Oscar
nominees include La La Land, Room, The Imitation Game, Silver Linings Playbook, Precious, Crouching Tiger
Hidden Dragon, Life Is Beautiful, Shine, Places In The Heart and The Big Chill.
But last year,
Hidden Figures, a Best
Picture nominee also from Fox, had taken in $ 119.5 million through Feb. 5, three weeks before the Feb. 26 Oscar ceremony.
In an especially strong year for the silver screen, there are nine Best
Picture nominees; «Arrival» (Paramount
Pictures), «Fences» (Paramount
Pictures), «Hacksaw Ridge» (Lionsgate), «Hell or High Water» (CBS Films / Lionsgate), «
Hidden Figures» (20th Century Fox), «La La Land» (Lionsgate), «Lion» (The Weinstein Co.), «Manchester by the Sea» (Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions), and «Moonlight» (A24) will all be competing for Hollywood's highest honor.
Hidden Figures taking the prize for Best Ensemble in a Motion
Picture honestly seems right on brand as it's big ensemble with name actors in a movie everyone likes, without the big Oscar
nominee in the race.
But with competition from Oscar perennials, including Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks («The Post»), Frances McDormand («Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri»), Saoirse Ronan («Lady Bird»), Daniel Day - Lewis («Phantom Thread») and Gary Oldman («Darkest Hour»)-- plus the lack of persistent buzz enjoyed by last year's diverse
nominees including «Lion,» «Fences» and «
Hidden Figures» — it's going to be a struggle for most of these
pictures and performances to simply score a nomination.
Three of this year's nine Best
Picture Oscar
nominees will now have grossed more than $ 100M, as «Arrival» joins «
Hidden Figures» and «La La Land».
Outside the acting races, four of the Academy's 2017
nominees for best
picture revolved around characters of color; Garth Davis» Lion, Theodore Melfi's
Hidden Figures, Barry Jenkins» Moonlight, and Washington's Fences.
Up for four other prizes — including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay — the Austrian end - of - life drama will likely follow in the footsteps of the three previous Best Foreign Film / Best
Picture double
nominees (Life is Beautiful, Z, and Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon), easily taking the Foreign Film Oscar and leaving the big one for domestic product.
The last Best
Picture winner nominated for Best Art Direction to lose that award was «Gladiator,» which lost to fellow Best
Picture nominee «Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon.»