With the end of the year rapidly approaching, that means awards season is starting to heat up, and today we have word that one of the year’s surprise box office hits could be a big awards season contender as well. Universal’sGet Out, from first-time director Jordan Peele, will compete in the comedy categories for the Golden Globes this year, which could certainly be to the movie’s advantage moving forward. This move could placeGet Out, which has already been called themost profitable movie of 2017, in a position to land nominations for its main star, Daniel Kaluuya, and possibly for writer-director Jordan Peele as well.
Awards season pundits have already peggedGet Outas a likely contender, but the movie competing in the comedy category could allowGet Out star Daniel Kaluuyato be nominated alongside likely contenders in the comedy/musical category like Hugh Jackman (The Greatest Showman on Earth}), Steve Carell (Battle of the Sexes), Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick) and James Franco (The Disaster Artist). While it seems unlikely thatGet Outsupporting stars like Allison Williams, Caleb Landry Jones, LilRel Howrey, Bradley Whitford or Catherine Keener could be nominated in the Supporting categories, it’s possible that Jordan Peele could score nominations for writing or directing.
The Comedy/Musical categories have always been the source of mild controversy come awards season, with recent movies likeThe MartianandThe Wolf of Wall Street, which are neither musical nor comedy movies, being placed in that category. When Leonardo Di Caprio won Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical forThe Wolf of Wall Street, he even thanked his “fellow comedians” such as Bruce Dern (Nebraska), Christian Bale (American Hustle), Joaquin Phoenix (Her) and Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis) during his acceptance speech. This year, though, if the aforementioned films are in fact nominees in the comedy.musical categories, they are all legitimately comedies or musicals, evenGet Out, which while it is a horror film at heart, still has plenty of comedic elements. This horror-comedy hybrid element could be one of the reasons why it had an unprecedented100% on Rotten Tomatoesgoing into its opening weekend.
It’s also worth noting that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which runs the Golden Globes, has a much smaller voting body than the Academy, with the HFPA comprised of about 90 foreign journalists, which, when paired with the dual categories for drama and comedy/musical, leads to a more diverse slate of nominees.Get Outwas one big reason why2017 was the biggest year for horror moviesin box office history, along with the success ofAnnabelle: CreationandIT, which became the first horror movie ever to cross $300 million at the domestic box office. Still, neither of those other movies are being touted as awards season favorites likeGet Outis.
Ironically, back in May, the MTV Movie Awards put together a spoof video that depictedGet Out as a romantic comedy, which debuted just days before the awards ceremony. It’s worth noting thatGet Outdid win two MTV Movie Awards this summer, with LilRel Howrey winning for Best Comedic Performance, playing Rod Williams, the TSA agent best friend of Daniel Kaluuya’s Chris Washington, with Kaluuya taking home the Next Generation Award. While the MTV Movie Awards are never usually any sort of awards-season indicator, it’s worth noting that the Academy invited a record-breaking 774 new members into its ranks as part of its sweeping diversity initiative, and it wouldn’t be surprising ifGet Outends up becoming a dark horse Oscar contender as well.Get Outopened with a surprising $33.4 million, en route to a $253.4 million worldwide gross from just a $4.5 million budget.Entertainment Weeklybroke the news aboutGet Outcompeting as a comedy, and hopefully we’ll have more on the movie’s awards season chances.
