When Will Marvel Win a Visual Effects Oscar?

I wish I had written down who wrote it, but recently on Twitter I saw a post about how, regardless of what you think of the Marvel movies, it's absolutely insane how every week we seem to have the same conversation about the movies on social media.  This isn't wrong-comic book movies being the centerpiece of so much conversation about cinema is insanity, and shows a true lack of creativity not just from Hollywood, but from anyone talking about movies in general.  Why do we feel the need to talk about these movies continuously?

Thankfully, we don't talk ad nauseum about comic book movies on this blog, but I wanted to today, with Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness coming out in a couple of weeks (when I will hopefully be on vacation...in the third year of the pandemic, I don't jinx any vacation with more declarative statements until I'm literally on the flight back from it), I want to discuss one of the weirder phenomenons about the films: that not one of the MCU films have won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

While the Oscar for Best Visual Effects had a place at the first Oscars (a Special Effects statue went to Wings), it wasn't a competitive category until 1939 (when somehow The Rains Came beat both Gone with the Wind AND The Wizard of Oz), and was not consistently awarded until the 1960's.  While superhero films existed during that time frame, this wasn't where the focus was for the Oscars.  They instead favored movies that interspersed animation along live-action like Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, or went with disaster films like The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, and The Hindenburg.  It wasn't until 1978 that a comic book film was given an Oscar for Visual Effects (the blockbuster Superman), and 1992's Batman Returns would be the next film to get a nomination, with AMPAS ignoring both the original Batman and Dick Tracy.

It took a while for superhero films to regularly get nominated.  Another Batman film wouldn't be cited for Visual Effects until 2008 after Batman Returns, and despite a lot of box office success with movies like Blade and X-Men, Marvel wouldn't get its first nomination for Visual Effects until 2002's Spider-Man.  This was followed by a citation for Spider-Man 2, which against weak competition would get the comic book house its sole trophy for Visual Effects to date.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is generally considered to have started in 2008 with Iron Man, which was nominated for Best Visual Effects, and normally would've won but against the Oscar behemoth Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the box office supernova The Dark Knight, it was an also-ran.  There was a lot of promise with this citation (both of the following Iron Man movies would be nominated), but it also started a pattern of Oscar ignoring the series or the MCU having abysmal luck.

In the early years, it was mostly just that Oscar seemed to genuinely not like the MCU enough to cite here.  Against more groundbreaking films like Avatar, Inception, and Gravity, the staid superhero aesthetic (which stayed relatively similar across multiple movies), just couldn't compete.  When there were movies that might have been vulnerable like Hugo, Oscar didn't even cite the MCU entries that year (the first Captain America and Thor movies).  Even the gargantuan first Avengers movie couldn't luck out, with Life of Pi being undeniable.

In the time since 2008, twelve MCU films have been cited for Best Visual Effects (and a thirteenth Marvel movie, X-Men: Days of Future Past also got in).  This isn't a bad stretch, obviously (for comparison sake, despite some love in other tech categories and a mountain of cash earned, no DC film has been cited in the category since 2008's The Dark Knight), but it is weird that the movies that are pretty much shorthand for modern effects films haven't gotten the industry's top effects honor.  In recent years, it's become a bit more obvious that the Academy is dragging its feet on this one, going with atypical movies like First Man and 1917 (with more supporting than front-and-center effects) against the final two Avengers movies.

In 2022, the biggest question for this category is if Avatar 2 is released or not.  Most assume that James Cameron's long-awaited sequel will see the light-of-day by Christmas, but that has been rumored for so long at this point I'll only believe it when I have the ticket in my hand.  Cameron is pretty much unstoppable in this category.  Since 1986, he has won for every film he's made save for one (1994's True Lies), and that was only because it had to compete against the Forrest Gump sweep.  For all of the bluster & hate online, there is virtually no way that Avatar 2 doesn't start out (and end) as the frontrunner for this trophy if it's released.

But if it's not...I think the MCU will finally have its day.  I just can't tell for which movie.  Marvel has three projects this year: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Thor: Love and Thunder.  While a nomination seems certain for one of these (particularly after all four MCU films made the Top 10 last year, and two got nominated), I'm not sure which one makes the most sense.  All three franchises have only gotten one nomination (the original Dr. Strange), which would imply it is the favorite though sentiment (and Oscar's predisposition for its predecessor) makes Black Panther 2 formidable.

The reason I think MCU has a shot is that there's not really a lot of (obvious) competition if you take Avatar 2 out of the equation.  In an era where large budgets are a huge risk, most major franchises are sitting 2022 out.  Fantastic Beasts and Jurassic World have effects-heavy entries, but neither series has received play here before, and Top Gun: Maverick feels primarily like practical effects, which they haven't been at all interested in even for some of the worthy Mission: Impossible movies.  Everything Everywhere All at Once might be a nominee, but it ain't winning, and while there's the possibility that movies like Pinocchio (either one), Nope, The Gray Man, or Three Thousand Years of Longing gain critical traction in the way that something like 1917 or First Man did, if Avatar 2 does get delayed, arguably the biggest roadblock between MCU and its first Visual Effects Oscar is...The Batman, giving social media yet another round of constant debate over which franchise is the worthiest.