Oscar Watch: New poster for 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' debuts
Posted Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 2:10 PM Central
Last updated Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 2:17 PM Central
by John Couture
It's been a week or two since we checked in with a new Oscar Watch and that's mainly been due to the lack of real news in the awards race. October is really the month of frights and scares at the box office, not exactly the prime demographic for Oscar glory.
As such, the studios have been waiting for the calendar to advance before starting their assault on our refined movie tastes. One movie that has sort of bucked the odds is a movie that is sure to be in the thick of it come Academy Awards time, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Directed by David Fincher and based on a wildy popular international best-seller, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo would normally be a shoe-in for at least 10 nominations and somewhere around 5 wins. Ah, but The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is anything but normal. In fact, the book/movie celebrates its uniqueness so much so that if author Stieg Larsson were still alive, I would wouldn't be surprised at all if he would have boycotted the awards ceremonies altogether.
The subject matter is grisly and raw and very much uncomfortable for an American film-going audience that is known for being more conservative in their tastes. If fact, the only other movie that I can compare it to in terms of Academy appeal and controversy is 1992's The Crying Game, which was virtually shut out at the Oscars winning only once among six nominations.
So, to say that the deck is stacked against The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo would be an understatement.
They didn't do themselves any favors earlier this year when they released a racy one-sheet teaser that featured a topless Rooney Mara on it. Below you will find the "censored" version of said poster.
The uncensored shot moves the release date to the bottom of the poster revealing Mara's breast. While the image is quite in line with Mara's character Lisbeth Salander and the general tone of the book, it's not an image that immediately says Academy Award winner.
Personally, I applaud the studio and the producers for remaining true to the spirit of the books despite the potential for losing out on Oscar glory. It's not a question of whether The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will be nominated for any Oscars, but simply how many.
It stands to reason that Mara and Fincher will almost assuredly get nods for Best Actress and Best director respectively. Trent Reznor will also likely get nominated for Best Score. When you add in the given nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and likely nods for Best Cinematography and an odd one in the Best Costume or Best Sound Editing or like categories and you're up to a total of 6 or so nominations.
From what we have seen so far in the trailers, it would be a shame if The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo brings home any less that four statuettes on the big night. With that in mind, I suppose I'm not all that surprised by today's release of a new poster that is much more tame and more akin to the Academy's standards.
To be honest, I'm not completely sold on this poster. It just seems a bit too ethereal to me. What has been striking about the marketing campaign up until this point is their willingness to be in your face with the controversial aspects of the work.
I just hope that this new poster isn't indicative of an overall gloss that the film is going to go through ahead of its release. It will be quite disappointing to sit through a neutered cut of the film, even if it does accomplish an unspoken goal of winning more Oscars.
What do you think of the new poster? Also, what do you think of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's chances at the Oscars? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo hits theaters on December 21.