The public has spoken; they want ’12 Years a Slave’ to win Best Film and Alfonso Cuaron to win Best Director

The public has spoken; they want ’12 Years a Slave’ to win Best Film and Alfonso Cuaron to win Best Director

‘Dallas Buyers Club’ is the people’s choice for both the Lead and the Supporting Actor  Academy Awards®, whilst Cate Blanchett and Jennifer Lawrence take the Lead Actress and the Supporting Actress Academy Awards®  in ‘Blue Jasmine’ and ‘American Hustle’ respectively.

It’s the biggest weekend in the movie-goers calendar. On Sunday, the great, the good and the downright legendary from the world of cinema will be gathering at LA’s Dolby Theatre to find out who will be getting their hands on one of the coveted gold statuettes.

However as we know, results and even the nominees for the Academy Awards®,are famously controversial. Do the Oscars® get awarded to the person, or film that is the people’s champion; or is the Academy out of touch with the public?  Ahead of this weekend’s ceremony, Way To Blue have examined the social buzz around the nominees for Best Film, Leading Actor and Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress and the Best Director, to see not only how many people are discussing each nominee, but who the public want to win in each category. This is otherwise referred to as Desire To Win. Come Sunday we will be able to see if the public and the Academy are in step.

·      12 Years a Slave looks set to storm the Best Film category if the public has anything to do with it. Not only did it score the highest volume of overall buzz (5,173 mentions), it also came top of our Desire to Win ranking, scoring 1,932 mentions.

·      However when we start looking at the other categories, the situation gets even more interesting. Even though Steve McQueen is winning in terms of discussion, with 1,422 mentions of his name in relation to the Oscars, more people are chatting about the fact that they feel or want Alfonso Cuaron to take home the trophy – Cuaron has 717 mentions compared to McQueen’s 678. The race will be close, but the public is behind Cuaron.

·      Moving onto the Best Actor, Leonardo DiCaprio received 850 more mentions than his nearest rival (3,562 mentions compared to Matthew McConaughey’s 2,712). The situation is reversed when it comes to Desire To Win, with McConaughey pipping DiCaprio to the post with 1,217 mentions compared to Leo’s 1,082. It seems the McConissance really is here.

·      The Best Actress category seems to be more wide open. Sandra Bullock scores the highest volume of discussion followed by Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, with Cate Blanchett coming in fourth.  However, Cate Blanchett takes the Desire To Win lead in the Best Actress category with the public, scoring 910 mentions, whilst Sandra Bullock follows closely behind, with 867 mentions.

·      Jared Leto wins the battle for both buzz volume and Desire To Win for the Best Supporting Actor crown, with his nearest rival Bradley Cooper trailing behind him.

·      Rounding up the big six, American sweetheart Jennifer Lawrence looks set to hustle her way to Best Supporting Actress. Not only does she secure over 5,000 mentions in relation to the award, she also has 1,091 Desire To Win mentions.

Interestingly, from our research of the nominations in the six categories, there isn’t one film that the public most want to win. Our Desire To Win frontrunners are spread across five films, with ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ securing two ‘wins’ – Best Lead Actor and Best Supporting Actor.

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About Way To Blue and ‘Desire To Win’ forecasting

The Way To Blue Intent algorithm is based on a combination of social conversation search queries combined with proprietary methodology developed over numerous studies into the film and entertainment Industry. Way To Blue is a global integrated communications agency, delivering insight led strategy and creativity for clients across the film, entertainment and retail industries. www.waytoblue.com