Twitter has been abuzz with joke and troll responses to the introduction of a Fan Favourite Movie of 2021 Award and the Most Cheer-Worthy Moment Ever Award, which will be handed out at the Oscars next month. There are also certain fan-bases who are, of course, mobilising to get their favourites to win. One particularly vocal group will not be able to spam their way to the award, however, because Zack Snyder’s Justice League is ineligible.
The four-hour (original) director’s cut of Justice League was released on HBO Max in March of last year. However, it is not eligible for any Oscars (Fan Favourite or otherwise), as The Academy has released a list of eligible movies and Zack Snyder’s Justice League is not on it.
It’s not completely clear why, but when the much-maligned earlier cut of Justice League (which was made mainly under Joss Whedon’s supervision) was released, it was probably Oscar-eligible. Snyder wanted his cut of Justice League to be shown in IMAX, but given the run-time, that was always going to be a tall order. The Academy does have strict rules regarding theatrical releases.
The Oscars have tried many different strategies in the last five years to try to curb falling ratings. The idea of a “Most Popular Movie” has been mooted, but they have gone back-and-forth about including it. This Fan Favourite Award is the closest we’ve come to it and it is likely to be won by a box office behemoth such as Spider-Man: No Way Home.
The Oscar hosts for this year have been announced as Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes. It is believed that they will each host one hour of the three-hour ceremony. After last year’s ratings were half of the previous year’s, ABC are scrambling to find a way to bring in an audience.
The fate of both Batman and Superman within the DCEU is currently very much up in the air, but we do have The Flash and Aquaman 2 to look forward to. Ray Fisher (who played Cyborg) has been cast in Zack Snyder’s original science fiction movie Rebel Moon.