14 DAY TRIAL // One of the most talked about releases of December, right before the awards season kicks off, is “The Revenant” from director Alejandro Inarritu, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. The movie has had a notoriously difficult production, which translated into an overinflated budget, production drama and lots of internal fussing on whether it was worth such a high risk.
A recent piece in The Wrap touches on all these topics, from how the shooting expanded because of adverse weather conditions and because Inarritu refused to shoot in a studio or against a green screen, to how production crew left because they could no longer take the pressure, and how the budget doubled in time.
Add to this the fact that the film has been in pre-production limbo for years and what you get is the conclusion that New Regency needs “The Revenant” to be a hit both with audiences and the critics. It needs to make money at the box office and it needs to win awards, or all this will have been in vain and they (and everyone else involved) will look stupid for it.
So now that they’ve spend so much money on it, they’re not saying no to spending even more to make it truly award-worthy, the report says.
“One knowledgeable insider claimed that New Regency has hired ‘every awards consultant known to man’ to strategize an Oscar campaign for ‘The Revenant’ - evidence of the studio’s emphasis on awards prestige which have also been known to boost a film’s box office prospects.”
Inarritu comes off the very strong, Oscar-winning “Birdman” and many are putting their money on DiCaprio for a Best Actor win. New Regency too wants it to happen, so, Academy, just give Leo his Oscar already, won’t you? He’s earned it.
