(Los Angeles) The duo Barbie and Oppenheimer, who topped the box office this summer, dominated the nominations for the Golden Globes on Monday, film and television awards in search of renewal.
A true cultural and commercial phenomenon, the film Barbie by American Greta Gerwig was nominated nine times, notably in the categories “best comedy”, “best director” and “best song” (with three titles).
Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s twisty portrait of the designer of the atomic bomb, has eight nominations, including “best drama film” and “best director.”
Followed by Killers of the Flower Moon by Martin Scorsese and Poor Creatures by Yorgos Lanthimos, each nominated seven times.
Winner of the 2023 Palme d’Or, the French drama Anatomy of a Fall by Justine Triet stands out with four nominations. Sandra Huller, who plays a German writer accused of having killed her husband, is applying in the “best dramatic actress” category.
Dubbed “Barbenheimer” on social media, the year’s two blockbusters were released at the same time, during the summer, and are poised to dominate Hollywood’s awards season, which begins with the Golden Globes.
“It’s incredible that they (these two films) managed to extend this momentum,” greeted Golden Globes executive vice-president Tim Gray on Monday.
The ceremony will also honor the television series Succession and The Last Of Us, which have respectively received nine and three nominations.
It will be held in Beverly Hills on January 7 and will be broadcast by the national network CBS, owned by the cinema giant Paramount, which replaced its competitor NBC.
With this change of broadcaster, a new category, a reshuffled jury and new owners, the Golden Globes are trying to boost their audiences and put aside the controversies of the past.
Once placed just behind the Oscars in terms of audience, the “Globes” only attracted 6.3 million viewers in 2023, their worst audience score, after 18 million at the start of 2020, just before the COVID pandemic. -19.
The ceremony has lost its luster due to accusations of racism and corruption, and some critics in Hollywood say the reforms raise new ethical questions.
For decades, the Golden Globes were owned, operated and awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). This eclectic group of around a hundred journalists covering the entertainment section for international media has often been criticized by industry professionals for its amateurism and opacity.
These behind-the-scenes barbs came to light in 2021, when the Los Angeles Times revealed that the organization had no Black people and that its members were accepting lavish gifts.
The following year, the ceremony was boycotted by Hollywood. She remains today in search of redemption.
For this 81st edition, big names in cinema – Leonardo DiCaprio, Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling – are expected. We could also see Paul Giamatti, Bradley Cooper, Timothée Chalamet and Natalie Portman.
The Golden Globes were bought in June by investors, including American billionaire Todd Boehly. The HFPA was disbanded and a new plan adopted to try to restore its former prestige.
Members of the old HFPA are now employees of the new Golden Globes corporation, paid to watch films, vote and write articles for the organization’s website.
A situation potentially leading to conflicts of interest.
Especially since some of the new owners are essential players in the industry. Like the production company Penske Media, which owns the magazines Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, or the Eldridge company, which owns a stake in the A24 film studio, regularly in the running for Hollywood awards.
“There is something inappropriate about a Globes voter being paid to write on the Globes website about an actor he might nominate for a Golden Globe being brought back to the stage. a ceremony at the company he works for,” the Los Angeles Times recently pointed out in an editorial.
For the newspaper, “the new model seems to be a gigantic public relations machine.”
But the new Golden Globes are defending themselves.
According to the organization, paying a $75,000 salary to voters in Hollywood helps put an end to a flawed system, where precarious, often independent journalists accepted lavish gifts and luxurious, all-expense-paid press trips from the studios.
More than 200 non-member voters, and therefore unpaid, were also designated for greater impartiality. And the new board includes respected industry veterans, like ex-Variety editor-in-chief Tim Gray.
