UNITED STATES
Entertainment Weekly
[with video]
BY DEVAN COGGAN • @DEVANCOGGAN
Way back in September, the biggest headlines out of the Toronto International Film Festival were devoted to one movie: Spotlight. Tom McCarthy’s drama, which chronicles the Boston Globe’s investigation into sex abuse allegations in the Catholic Church, was labeled awards season gold — and it was even hailed as a worthy successor to All The President’s Men.
But that was September, and since then, the film’s Oscar chances, which had once felt like a lock, suddenly seemed… iffy. The film’s talented ensemble — Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Brian d’Arcy Jones, Stanley Tucci — meant that there was no one star to build on Oscar campaign around, and as stories of Leonardo DiCaprio eating bison liver began to dominate the year-end pre-nomination buzz, some were wondering whether Spotlight peaked too early. Such fears seemed legitimate when Spotlight got shut out of the Golden Globes last weekend, raising the question of whether the subtle but powerful journalism drama still had a prime seat at the Oscar table.
Turns out that the filmmakers needn’t have worried: Spotlight raked in six Oscar nominations, including ones for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.
“Literally, before I went to bed last night, I looked at the bloggers and I was like, ‘Okay, if we have a great morning, we’ll get five,’” co-writer Josh Singer says. “And then when we got six, it was just super thrilling.”
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