Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Friday, January 27th, 2023

What constitutes a "fair" Oscar nomination campaign?

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Friday, January 27th, 2023.

THE 'CONTROVERSY' OVER ANDREA RISBOROUGH'S OSCAR NOMINATION
Andrea Riseborough's best actress Oscar nomination for To Leslie was a surprise on a lot of levels. It was a lesser-seen film and even among a lot of the Oscar prediction "experts," her performance trailed those of Viola Davis (The Woman King) and Danielle Deadwyler (Till).

The unhappiness in some circles over her nomination spilled over into Puck, which posted an extended piece yesterday asking whether the campaign by friends and supporters to win her a nomination was "illegal?"

Journalist Matthew Belloni gives a nod to where he comes down on this question with this opening sentence:

By now we’re all aware that British star Andrea Riseborough scored a best actress Oscar nomination for To Leslie after her director’s wife and others orchestrated a skilled grassroots political campaign that made Obama 2008 look like Hillary 2016.

You can go read the piece if you wish. It's behind the Puck paywall and to be honest, you won't learn many specifics about the complaints. It seems to primarily center around uneasiness that a white actress seemingly pushed an actress of color out of one of the spots. And that Riseborough used her personal connections to encourage her powerful friends to see the film and post about it. 

Which seems like an odd complaint. It's true that having friends in the Academy voting pool helps and it's been common in previous years for this type of campaign to happen, but limited to in person face-to-face pitches. What seems to have irritated the supporters of some rivals is that Riseborough's team seems to have moved these pitches into the digital world. Unsolicited emails to voters, invitations to screenings and other efforts to make sure as many voters saw the film as possible.

The piece in Puck is mostly an inside-baseball laundry list of complaints and the general theme seems to be more about who didn't receive a nomination than the methods Riseborough's supporters might have used to get her a nod. And it does note that while Riseborough's supporters focused on a grassroots campaign (by necessity), Davis and Deadwyler were the focus of well-funded campaigns by Sony and MGM/Amazon, respectfully. As opposed to Riseborough's efforts, which apparently centered on the grassroots work by two PR firms hired by the director's wife.

But the piece gathered enough attention that it prompted the Academy to release a statement today promising to look into the allegations:

It's not even clear to me what the allegations might be in this case. That lobbying people you know is inherently racist? That certainly seem to be the implication from the phrase "committed to ensuring an inclusive awards process." Are Academy members speaking to each other about possible nominations not allowed? And are PR firm-created grassroots campaigns now seen as lacking integrity unless they include a splashy FYC campaign?

And if these are the problems, how you possibly fix the issue?

I don't think there's much dispute that not enough people of color have received Academy Award nominations in the past. But some of this seems to be driven by people who are unhappy that someone else figured out how to work the imperfect system. 

And while I don't like to think the worst of my fellow media industry journalists, I suspect those traditional Oscar FYC consideration ad campaigns are very lucrative to its bottom line. I'm sure that Penske Media (who owns just about every major Hollywood trade) would panic if suddenly the studios focused on more grassroots lobbying versus the expensive print and digital campaigns.

I am going to be interested to see how this plays out.

AMAZON PLANS 'TOMB RAIDER' FRANCHISE
The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Amazon has teamed with Dmitri M. Johnson’s dj2 Entertainment for a massive rights deal to make a Tomb Raider feature film, in addition to the newly announced TV series from Phoebe Waller-Bridge and at least one video game in the Lara Croft franchise:

One source with knowledge of the pact described it as being among the largest commitments at Amazon after Lord of the Rings. By comparison, Amazon is estimated to have spent $250 million on rights alone to Lord of the Rings, with that deal covering a multiple-season show (The Rings of Power) as well as spinoffs.

While Waller-Bridge is attached to write the script for the Tomb Raider TV series, the Fleabag Emmy-winner is not involved in the film or the game. Waller-Bridge is said to be a big Tomb Raider fan and was eager to be involved with the TV series, though she is not currently attached to star in the project that has a series greenlight built into the larger Tomb Raider rights deal. Her involvement in the Tomb Raider series stems from her recently renewed overall deal with Amazon.

This is definitely a promising idea - the Tomb Raider universe has a lot of franchise potential. I would argue that Amazon might be spending too much money for the IP, but the company has proven it is more than willing to overspend for IP if it suits their strategic purposes.

ODDS AND SODS
* In the least surprising news of the day, HBO/Sky have renewed The Last Of Us for a second season.

* The horror of Dracula: The unbelievable true story of the 2013 TV series.

* Yes, you have to be smart to play Jeopardy. But it's a peculiar kind of smart.

TWEET OF THE DAY

WHAT'S NEW FOR FRIDAY:
Kings of Jo'burg (Netflix)
Lockwood & Co. Series Premiere (Netflix)
Next At The Kennedy Center: The Roots Residency (PBS)
Shotgun Wedding (Prime Video)
Shrinking Series Premiere (Apple TV+)
The Snow Girl (Netflix)
We Are Not Alone (The Roku Channel)
You People (Netflix)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU MONDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.