Michael Cieply: Looking For A Viewer-Powered, Dog Days Oscar Hopeful

The Dog Days of summer—vaguely from mid-July through mid-August, depending on who does the counting—may not seem like much of an Oscar crucible. You’d think most Academy voters would be sipping Margaritas in Malibu, or Limoncello Martinis somewhere on the Mediterranean.

But as often as not in the last fifteen years, the Dog Day bracket has produced a Best Picture nominee. And last year, of course, it brought a winner in Oppenheimer, which was released alongside fellow Best Picture nominee Barbie on July 21, and was still going gangbusters in mid-August.

There’s a certain rough charm to the Dog Day nominees. (For the record, Dog Day Afternoon, nominated for Best Picture 1976, was a Christmas release.) They tend to be audience favorites, movies that connect with the movie-hungry middle, which powers them into the Oscar race, whatever the somewhat fussier film professionals may think.

The poster child for this sort of nominee was The Help, It spent four weekends on top the mid-to-late summer box office in 2011, and eventually took four Oscar nominations, with a supporting actress win for Octavia Spender. Not bad for a middle-brow DreamWorks dramedy.

In one way or another, BlacKKKlansman, Dunkirk, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, and Inception fit a Dog Day mold that was set by Saving Private Ryan back in 1998, and followed by pictures as varied as Inglourious Basterds and Little Miss Sunshine in the years that followed. They captured viewer momentum just before the awards elite took charge of the season in late August, first at Telluride, and then through a global network of festivals that put a premium precisely on what the general audience hasn’t seen.

Before the Covid lockdowns, this July-August pocket was a real thing, populated by well-attended, eventual Best Picture nominees, and plenty of interesting near-misses—The Butler, Blue Jasmine, Straight Outta Compton, and Eat Pray Love come to mind.

But this doesn’t seem to be that kind of summer. Inside Out 2 may have Oscar prospects, but it’s been hanging around since mid-June and can hardly count as a Dog Days release. It Ends With Us is selling tickets; but based on what I read from those who supposedly know, a Best Picture nomination would be a long reach indeed. Deadpool & Wolverine is more about popcorn than prizes. Sing Sing, released by A24 on July 12, at the very beginning of the Dog Days frame, is an early favorite among Oscar pros. But it certainly isn’t riding a wave of  summer viewer enthusiasm; playing in a handful of theaters, the film has been almost invisible at the box office.

From here on out, of course, the awards pros will control the game. Even audience pictures like Joker: Folie à Deux and Gladiator II will debut in a closely managed Oscar context, with promoters, handicappers and the massed media weighing in well before the average Joe has pre-paid online for a (wow!) very pricey ticket.

So in terms of Oscar excitement, the Dog Days are just Dog Days this year.