It's safe to say that BLACK PANTHER is quite the popular film. Not only did it receive some of the best reviews of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise, but it also went on the gross $1.3 billion at the worldwide box-office. There's also been a push for BLACK PANTHER to be recognized at the 91st Academy Awards next year, with Marvel Studios having hired veteran awards strategist Cynthia Swartz to orchestrate the Oscar campaign. Marvel also isn't interested in the Academy's new Oscar category for Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film, they're after the big one – Best Picture.
Although the Academy hasn't yet explained exactly how the Popular Film category will be defined, it's clear that its goal is for popular blockbusters such as BLACK PANTHER and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT to have a larger presence during the Awards ceremony. However, BLACK PANTHER star Chadwick Boseman spoke on THR's Awards Chatter podcast to say that he hopes that the new category won't deter Academy members from nominating the film for Best Picture.
We don't know what it [the new prize] is, so I don't know whether to be happy about it or not. What I can say is that there's no campaign [that we are mounting] for popular film; like, if there's a campaign, it's for best picture, and that's all there is to it. A good movie is a good movie and clearly it doesn't matter how much money a movie makes in order for it to be 'a good movie' [in the minds of Academy members] because if [it did], the movies that get nominated and win [which have tended in recent years to not be blockbusters] wouldn't get nominated; and if it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter on both sides. For my money, the only thing that matters is the level of difficulty.
For their part, The Academy has confirmed that films can be nominated in both categories. Chadwick Boseman continued by explaining just how difficult it was to craft the world of BLACK PANTHER. "We created a world, we created a culture … we had to create a religion, a spirituality, a politics; we had to create an accent; we had to pull from different cultures to create clothing styles and hair styles," Boseman said. "It's very much like a period piece. … So, as far as that's concerned, I dare any movie to try to compare to the [level of] difficulty of this one. And the fact that so many people liked it — if you just say it's [merely] popular, that's elitist."
I'd say that the chances of BLACK PANTHER landing a nomination in the Popular Film category are pretty good, but how do you feel about the film's Best Picture chances?