“Ithaca’s king is coming home.” But when Oscar season arrives, where will the Academy welcome back its queen?
Christopher Nolan‘s “The Odyssey” opened to a massive box office haul and an avalanche of critical praise, vaulting it to the front of the Oscar race months before the fall festivals begin. But the question already dominating awards conversations isn’t whether the film will contend (we already know it will). It’s where Universal will elect to campaign Oscar winner Anne Hathaway, who plays Penelope, wife of Odysseus (Matt Damon) and mother of Telemachus (Tom Holland), fending off suitors in her husband’s absence.
Lead or supporting? It’s the season’s first real strategic inquiry among awards enthusiasts, and the Academy’s own record book argues both ways — including one cautionary precedent from Nolan’s last epic to which Hathaway’s team will have to pay very special attention.
Universal is expected to mount an aggressive awards campaign, hoping to deliver Nolan a second best picture and best director victory just three years after “Oppenheimer.” In Variety’s Oscar analysis, our current projection shows a path that tops out at 17 nominations. Sixteen would tie the record set just last season by Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” which surpassed the long-standing mark of 14 shared by “All About Eve” (1950), “Titanic” (1997) and “La La Land” (2016).
