Bloodshot Makes Oscars Shortlist

This is the fist time in quite a while that there wasn't a Marvel Studios release to earn an Academy Award nomination in the visual effects category -- but that doesn't mean that there were no comic book movies in the short list for that category. Early 2020 releases like Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn and Bloodshot managed to make it into the category, one of a few Academy Awards spots that are typically populated by crowd-pleasing blockbusters. The other nominees on the short list include Love and Monsters, Mank, The Midnight Sky, Mulan, The One and Only Ivan, Soul, Tenet, and Welcome to Chechnya.

The film, which earned a 29% "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, likely attracted attention largely because of the way it depicted the nanotechnology that powers Bloodshot. One of the big things they do in the movie is just let the character walk into dangerous situations, soak up a lot of physical damage, and then let the nanotech self-repair his body.

Bloodshot follows Ray Garrison aka Bloodshot, a deceased soldier resurrected by weapons contractor Rising Spirit Technologies through the use of nanotechnology. Suffering from total memory loss but imbued with an array of staggering new abilities, Ray struggles to reconnect with who he was while learning what sort of weapon he has become...aided by a team of fellow augmented combatants codenamed Chainsaw.

Bloodshot is a super soldier created by Project Rising Spirit, a secret government organization that is not very altruistic. Bloodshot was injected with special nanites that give him a variety of powers, including an insane healing factor and the ability to change his skin to match his surroundings, giving him automatic camouflage. He's also quite skilled with just about every type of weapon, and can also dish out damage in hand to hand combat.

His time at Project Rising Spirit didn't just give him powers, however, but also several implanted identities. Bloodshot has always questioned which ones are true and which ones are implanted and knows little to nothing about his time before being Bloodshot. He was originally commissioned to hunt down psiots, but eventually, he broke free of his programming.

Bloodshot is directed by Dave Wilson (partner at Blur Studios alongside Deadpool director Tim Miller, who is making his feature debut), written by Eric Heisserer (Arrival), and produced by Neal Moritz (Fast and The Furious), Toby Jaffe (Happy!), and Dinesh Shamdasani (ex-Valiant CEO & Chief Creative Officer); it also co-stars Guy Pearce (Memento, LA Confidential), Eiza Gonzalez (Baby Driver) and Sam Heughan (Outlander).