Recently, it was announced that India’s official entry to Oscars 2023 would be Pan Nalin’s coming-of-age drama ‘Chhello Show’ aka ‘Last Film Show’. The news left myriad fans of S.S. Rajamouli’s ‘RRR’ heartbroken and disappointed. As you might already know that despite not being India’s official Oscar submission for the ‘Best International Feature’ category, ‘RRR’ still has a bright chance for getting Oscar nominations or even winning in other categories including ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Actor’, etc.
Even if the film was not India’s official pick as the ‘Best International Feature’ for Oscars 2023, then also ‘RRR’ would have been a strong contender for nominations in other important categories. The difference now would be that ‘RRR’ would potentially be competing for one less award at the Oscars.
Call it a twist of fate or a blessing in disguise, but RRR’s recent Oscar snub might in turn have brightened the film’s chances for a shot at Oscar nominations in other major categories. The reason? Because news about ‘RRR’ not being India’s official pick has visibly affected the film fraternity and cinephiles in the US and the overall sentiment now seems to have further inclined towards ‘RRR’.
Several reputed US-based publications have expressed their displeasure over the decision and their willingness for ‘RRR’ to compete alongside top-notch potential contenders like ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, ‘The Batman’, ‘Elvis’, ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, ‘The Fabelmans’, ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’, ‘The Whale’, and ‘Elvis’, to name a few.
For instance, American filmmaker Adam McKay (Director – Don’t Look Up) has recently remarked about his willingness to see ‘RRR’ getting nominated for the ‘Best Picture’ Oscar category.
After the theatrical release of ‘RRR’ in March this year, and more so after it started streaming globally on the Netflix OTT platform, the period action extravaganza has inarguably garnered an unprecedented response from audiences and critics across the globe.
Earlier, the epic action extravaganza ‘RRR’ had even acquired the rare ‘Certified Fresh’ status on Rotten Tomatoes and the coveted ‘Must-See’ tag on Metacritic – yet another rare achievement, especially for an Indian film. Moreover, as per a recent Oscar prediction report by reputed entertainment portal Variety, ‘RRR’ was named amongst the top-tier contenders in the ‘Best Picture’ category for the Oscar 2023 race.
We may call it the post-snub ‘sympathy’ factor for ‘RRR’ amongst the US-based audiences and filmmakers, or whatever we feel like, but it would probably not be wrong to say that the chances of ‘RRR’ getting nominated in the top Oscar 2023 categories are higher than ever. This is great news for Indian movie lovers because if ‘RRR’ indeed gets all these top Oscar nominations and hopefully even Pan Nalin’s ‘Chhello Show’ also gets the ‘Best International Feature’ nom, then it’s going to be a never-seen-before presence of the Indian film industry in the history of Oscars. Fingers crossed!