Robert Zemeckis’ films used to be regularly mentioned as possible Oscar candidates just over a decade ago, but then he decided to throw all of his love onto directing motion capture films such as THE POLAR EXPRESS and BEOWULF. This year however, he has returned to live action cinema with a Denzel Washington starring drama-thriller called FLIGHT and Paramount has started their push for Oscar nominations straight away.
The film premiered as the New York Film Festival closer over the weekend and Paramount followed it up with a Q & A on Monday with cast and crew including Zemeckis, writer John Gatins, and cast members including John Goodman, Kelly Reilly, Don Cheadle and Melissa Leo (Denzel Washington was scheduled to appear but fell ill and had to pull out). But this wasn’t just an event for the New York crowd as the entire event was screened at four theatres in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco with selected press and Oscar guild members getting invited. The panel then not only took questions from the live New York crowd, but they also took questions via Twitter from the people watching in California. Early buzz is that Denzel Washington could be in line for another Oscar nomination due to this film, with his turn as an alcoholic pilot that becomes an unlikely hero after crash landing a plane successfully gathering a lot of early praise.
This is just another way that new technology can maximise the oscar buzz and can limit the time that cast and crew will have to spend travelling around and promoting their work, so I think it’s safe to assume that we’ll see much more of this in the future. As for the Q & A itself, most of the questions ended up for Robert Zemeckis & John Gatins since the film’s star Denzel Washington couldn’t appear. Zemeckis talked about returning to live action without making too big a deal out of it, saying:
‘I read the script and fell in love with it, one of the most interesting and complex things I ever read…Making movies is making movies, but with motion capture you didn’t have to go out at night on location….I was in good shape to make this film now with this magnificent cast’
Personally I’m looking forward to watching this one as I think it could be a return to form for both director and star. Zemeckis hasn’t wowed me with his mo-cap work, and Denzel Washington seemed to be going through the motions in a lot of his recent films (as enjoyable as I think UNSTOPPABLE was, it was hardly award worthy). Fingers crossed that this turns out to be as good as it has the potential to be.
FLIGHT is directed by Robert Zemeckis and is starring Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, John Goodman, Kelly Reilly & Melissa Leo. The film is scheduled for a UK release on 1st February 2013.
Source: Deadline
