Dune has earned an impressive ten Oscar nominations, but some people weren’t pleased that Denis Villeneuve was snubbed a Best Director nomination. One person who couldn’t give a fig, though is Villeneuve himself, who isn’t even slightly fussed with missing out on the most coveted prize in the canvas chair business.
“Frankly, if you had told me a few months ago that we’d be in the Oscar race, that we’d have that kind of recognition, I would have not believed you,” he told MovieMaker magazine. “It’s really moving. If you’re nominated, it’s a beautiful thing… I don’t take things for granted, and I was deeply pleased with what we got.”
Villeneuve’s got plenty of reasons to be so relaxed about missing out on one of the bigger prizes. Dune’s earned nominations for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and plenty of technical awards as well, so there are plenty of opportunities for the science fiction movie auteur to earn a new decoration for his mantelpiece. That said, at least one member of the Dune cast isn’t pleased with the Academy missing out Villeneuve.
Josh Brolin, who plays Gurney Halleck in the sci-fi epic, said the decision not to nominate Villeneuve was “f*cking totally dumb” during an Instagram video.
“Congratulations to Legendary, Warner Bros, everybody who got nominated for Dune,” he told his fans: “And the unbelievable, almost numbing, flummoxing I feel for Denis Villeneuve not being nominated for best director. It’s just one of those things that you just go, ‘Huh? What?'”
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He finishes by expressing his confusion over how you can get ten nominations at the Academy Awards, but the director who adapted an “impossible book” doesn’t get a look in. The slightly erratic nomination process favoured by The Academy has led it to bring in a Fan Favourite award in an attempt to claw back some degree of relevance (and an audience).
However, Villeneuve nonchalance perhaps hints at something Seth Rogen has already said, people just don’t care about the Oscars anymore.