Another month, another great opportunity to check in on the Best Sound awards race as it stands about halfway through the year.
What We’ve Seen
Our two biggest contenders that have been discussed already are Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two and Alex Garland’s Civil War. Dune has precedent, the first installment winning Best Sound in 2022. The team has only built on their achievements this time around. The craft on display here covers the sweeping, overwhelming sound that pulls people in. In the case of Civil War, Garland and his team play around with huge, booming sounds and silent moments, all captured on camera by the war journalists at the center of the film. Admittedly, it’s likely that voters will only remember the heights of Dune: Part Two as it racks up nominations in all the technical categories, leaving Civil War by the wayside as other contenders emerge later this year.
An Emerging Contender
The release of George Miller’s fifth installment in the Mad Max franchise, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, has thrown another major contender into the mix. The previous film in the saga, Fury Road, won the prize for sound in 2016, so the precedent is there for this kind of work. Granted, it did not have quite as stiff competition in the form of another science fiction franchise sequel with a Sound victory under its belt, but that prior result still carries weight. The sound design team for this film has so much to work with, really showing off their skills in a couple of chase sequences along Fury Road that replicate the heights achieved in 2016.
A couple of things are going against Furiosa, not just the Sound race but most technical categories as well. The first hurdle the team will have to clear is the box office performance and the public’s interpretation. Furiosa has only managed to collect just under $68 million domestically on a $168 million budget, which prematurely sent the filmgoing community into an existential crisis at the end of May. Of course, these numbers speak nothing to the quality of work being done in the filmmaking and technical realm, and that is where the other hang-up is. 30 years separate the release of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and Mad Max: Fury Road, which allowed for unprecedented technological advancement that made the latter a phenomenon in the mid-2010s. Only 8 years separate the most recent installments, and there hasn’t been enough technological progression for Furiosa to stand out. The combination of these factors could make its stock fall in the eyes of voters and may even knock it out of the category entirely.
Looking Ahead
At the midway point of the year, there have only been two surefire contenders in the form of Dune 2 and Furiosa, with Civil War likely not having enough goodwill to make it to the awards season conversations at the tail end of this year. Assuming these two films are taking two of the five nominations right now, most of the category remains to be filled out. Something the Academy seems very willing to recognize is a successful musical, and we have a couple of possibilities to look forward to later this year. Joker: Folie A Deux, the much-anticipated follow-up to Todd Phillips’ 2019 critical and commercial success, has added Lady Gaga joining Joaquin Phoenix as he reprises the role that won him Best Actor just a few years ago. And apparently, it’s a musical? It remains to be seen what kind of musical it will be and just how much this will involve, but if they can replicate their success it could receive a nomination in many technical categories like the original. Another highly anticipated musical is the film adaptation of Wicked, the stage musical that has taken the world by storm for the better part of the 21st century. This type of film could either be incredibly successful and celebrated or get widely panned if not done well, and there’s no result in between.
Some other contenders include Steve McQueen’s WWII drama Blitz starring Saoirse Ronan, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, and Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters. All three have the potential to showcase some truly awesome sound effects and designs, with big action set pieces leading the charge to cement them in the running for technical awards aplenty. Twisters is the only one we will get to see relatively soon, with the other two coming in the last couple of months of 2024.
This race is proving to be one that could take all year to make a definitive call for, but at this point, it seems to be Dune: Part Two’s to lose. The quality, scale, and widespread appeal of the work done in this film are simply head and shoulders above anything else released thus far, and it would take some major momentum to catch up to it. The long awards season offers ample time for this to happen, but films released in November and December will be competing with Dune when all is said and done.
