Olivia Wilde Heats Up Sundance as Searchlight Comes Up Short; Plus, My Annual 'If I Had an Oscar Ballot' Feature

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Yesterday brought the BAFTA nominations, which shed some more light on the Oscar race, as well as the WGA nominations, which did not.

One Battle After Another led the way at the BAFTAs with one more nomination than Sinners, whose Delroy Lindo was snubbed, as was Amy Madigan, perhaps signaling that Teyana Taylor truly is the frontrunner in that category after all. Frankly, it was just nice to see Pillion score a little love, and there’s more love to come below, as you’ll see.

Paul Thomas Anderson is a shoo-in to win the WGA Award for One Battle After Another, which also won the USC Scripter Award, bolstering its Oscar chances — if you believe in the power of such precursors.

Meanwhile, Sinners will surely win the WGA Award for original screenplay over Black Bag, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Weapons, and certainly Marty Supreme, following the California Post’s recent story about Josh Safdie, as recycled as it may have been.

In Box Office Land, Chris Pratt‘s screenlife movie Mercy dethroned Avatar: Fire and Ash, but it still seemed to underperform with just $10.8 million for the weekend. The film has been getting brutal reviews, and I just don’t think people are into AI Villains as a concept… even if they look like Rebecca Ferguson.

Oh, and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple sank like a stone at the box office. Let’s face it, this is a dead franchise, and not even Cillian Murphy is going to be able to resurrect it. I mean, how many people watched Steve on Netflix?

Speaking of which, Sony has a deal with Netflix, which streams its movies following their theatrical runs. It’s entirely possible that Sony could ask Netflix to co-finance the third film in Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s proposed trilogy, and that film could become a Netflix exclusive. That would allow Boyle and Garland to complete their vision while mitigating the growing financial risk for Sony.

And for the record, I didn’t really buy a ticket to Brett Ratner’s propaganda-ish documentary Melania, which I expect to outperform its tiny estimates, as tracking “red-state movies” is a notorious blind spot for some of these services, and I do believe that Trump’s wacky base will rally behind the First Lady.

Later this week, I hope to publish a TV-centric newsletter featuring 2025 in review, a preview of what’s to come in 2026, and reviews of The Pitt Season 2, Hijack Season 2, The Beauty, and Wonder Man.

I’ll also have a review of Good Luck, Don’t Die, Have Fun, which I saw on Monday night as part of AMC’s Screen Unseen program. Suffice to say, despite a 95 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, that film is going to be a tough sell for Briarcliff when it hits theaters next month, though it’s apparently popular with the TikTok crowd.

Tonight’s newsletter brings my annual If I Had an Oscar Ballot feature, which I cribbed from the great Kris Tapley, though I’ve been doing it for nearly as long at this point.

Of course, I don’t actually have an Oscar ballot — or any awards ballot, for that matter — so I really have to make this one count.

I also weigh in on the sleepy sales market at the final Sundance Film Festival in Park City, where Olivia Wilde is heating up the mountain, and Searchlight has gone ice cold.

There are also items about Halle Berry’s development slate, Justine Triet’s follow-up to Anatomy of a Fall, Sydney Sweeney’s new movie, Mark Wahlberg’s reunion with Baltasar Kormakur, Lionsgate’s Dirty Dancing sequel, CAA’s signing spree, and the release date of Henry Cavill’s “new” movie, which has been sitting on a shelf for years. Plus, a look at the trailer for Boots Riley’s colorful new film, I Love Boosters, which features one hell of a cool cast.

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