If you've been following our weekly poll of the best summer blockbusters of 2017, you'll see that War For The Planet Of The Apes is in there - and now, it looks as though it's going to be in a much bigger race.
A source at Fox has confirmed to Deadline that War is now being pushed into the Oscar race and that a major campaign is being mounted to secure a nomination for Best Picture and a Best Actor gong for Andy Serkis. Speaking to Deadline, Peter Chernin, one of the film's producers and a former studio head at Fox, said that "people probably have tended to sort of genre-ize it and sort of look at it, well, as if it is a genre movie and not take it as seriously as they should, and I think that you know our view is that this movie deserves serious consideration."
"Certainly it’s been made with a level of ambition, care, and attention that’s as meaningful as anything I’ve ever worked on."
The original 1968 movie won an Oscar for Best Makeup, however Charlton Heston - who had previously won an Oscar in 1960 for Ben-Hur - did not secure another one that year. As for War's chances winning an Oscar, there's a lot of goodwill for the film.
For one thing, the film received universal praise from critics and audiences alike, and this year's voting pool in the Oscars is far more diverse than it's ever been - so the rules that would normally make one think it's a shoe-in for an Oscar have been rewritten.
Considering that Mad Max: Fury Road managed to score 10 nominations, and Suicide Squad (F*CKING SUICIDE SQUAD) is an Oscar-winning film (for Best Makeup, funnily enough), War should definitely be in with a shot.
Via Deadline
