Or, at least, Warner Bros. would like to people to be forced to mention Mad Max: Fury Road when discussing next year’s Academy Awards nominations for Best Picture–for a massive, free amount of publicity, even though it doesn’t really expect Fury Road to get nominated, let alone win.
Film critic Mike McGranahan found the first ad:
WB also asked that actors Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult also be considered for Best Actor, Actress and Supporting Actor, respectively.
I suppose it’s not impossible that Fury Road would be nominated, but there’s no chance in hell of it winning. The Academy almost never recognizes genre entertainment, and if you’re thinking about Peter Jackson winning for Return of the King, the Oscar was given to him not because Return of the King was actually the best movie of the year but as sort of a reward for making several billions of dollars, and creating such a massively popular movie franchise that it genuinely benefitted the film industry as a whole.
Fury Road was good—really good—but at the moment it’s only the 15th most profitable film of the year, and something tells me that might change once The Force Awakens comes out. The Academy isn’t going to consider shit.
[The Mary Sue via Gamma Squad]
Contact the author at rob@io9.com.