LOS ANGELES (AP) – The most tumultuous Oscar season in memory might pale in comparison to the aftermath.
The best picture race to Sunday’s 91st Academy Awards remains unpredictable, but odds makers peg Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” as the film most likely to triumph at the end of the night. That would hand Netflix, the insurgent streaming service, the most prestigious honor in a movie business it has thoroughly disrupted.
Change is everywhere at this year’s Academy Awards, from the nominees to the show, itself. For the second time in 30 years, there will be no host at Sunday’s show, which begins airing live on ABC at 8 p.m. EST. The lead-up to the Oscars has been dominated by dispute over the academy’s own attempts at innovation to counter last year’s record-low ratings. But after uproar from academy members, those plans – not showing some awards live, introducing a “best popular film” category – were abandoned.
Even if the Oscars end up proceeding more conventionally, the winners promise to be untraditional. Marvel stands to win its first Oscar for either “Black Panther” (up for six Oscars including best picture) or the animated favorite, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse.” Spike Lee, aiming for his first competitive Oscar, could become the first black filmmaker to win best director.
“Roma,” which comes in with a co-leading 10 nominations, is favored to win best picture, best director, best cinematography and best foreign language film. If “Roma” won best picture, it would be the first foreign language movie ever to do so.