Disney Reveals Oscars Push for Eternals Including Best Picture Nominee

Disney and Marvel Studios will mount an Academy Awards campaign in support of Eternals, the  2021 superhero film from director Chloe Zhao. The campaign will push hard in a number of categories, including Best Picture. Most high-profile releases get at least a token Oscar campaign, and Marvel is in competition with itself, having already launched a campaign for Spider-Man: No Way Home. Eternals feels slightly different, because Zhao's previous film, Nomadland, actually won last year's Best Picture award. The studio is also pushing for awards for Zhao for Best Director, as well as a number of acting categories.

Typically, superhero movies and other big tentpole blockbusters only get serious consideration in technical categories. There have been some exceptions, like 2008's The Dark Knight, and Marvel's own Black Panther, which earned a Best Picture nomination in 2019.

You can see the full list of nominations Disney is asking the Academy to consider for this year's awards:

BEST PICTURE
Kevin Feige, p.g.a.
Nate Moore, p.g.a.
BEST DIRECTOR
Chloé Zhao
BEST ACTRESS
Gemma Chan
BEST ACTOR
Richard Madden
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Lia McHugh
Lauren Ridloff
Salma Hayek
Angelina Jolie
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Kumail Nanjiani
Brian Tyree Henry
Barry Keoghan
Don Lee
Kit Harrington
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Chloé Zhao
Patrick Burleigh
Ryan Firpo
Kaz Firpo
Story By
Ryan Firpo
Kaz Firpo
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Ben Davis, BSC
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Production Designer
Eve Stewart
Set Decorator
Michael Standish
BEST SOUND
Addison Teague
Daniel Laurie
Lora Hirschberg
Juan Peralta
Gareth John
BEST FILM EDITING
Craig Wood, ACE
Dylan Tichenor, ACE
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Sammy Sheldon Differ
BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Producer discretion – aligning with bafta
Frances Hannon
Karen Cohen
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Stephane Ceretti
Matt Aitken
Daniele Bigi
Neil Corbould
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Ramin Djawadi

Marvel's campaign in support of Spider-Man: No Way Home has been a lightning rod on social media, with superhero fans and geek culture writers advocating for it to get serious consideration, while "film Twitter has mostly rejected the idea, with the usual line of thinking being that what makes a movie a crowd-pleaser and what makes one an Oscar contender are typically a different set of criteria.

Marvel's Eternals features an exciting new team of Super Heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ancient aliens who have been living on Earth in secret for thousands of years. Following the events of Avengers: Endgame, an unexpected tragedy forces them out of the shadows to reunite against mankind's most ancient enemy, The Deviants

Marvel's Eternals will begin streaming on Disney+ on January 12th.