Will “Spider-Man: No Way Home” mount an Oscars comeback after being left out of the best picture race? A new, fan-voted category at the 2022 Academy Awards may help pave the way for the Tom Holland-led blockbuster, Twitter and the Academy have announced.
Starting on Monday, Twitter users can vote on their favorite film of 2021 by tweeting the title along with #OscarsFanFavorite and #Sweepstakes. The votes will count for any film, even if it did not receive a single Oscar nomination. Users can vote up to 20 times per day. The winning film will then be revealed during the Academy Awards broadcast, which will be held on March 27.
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Votes can also be submitted at the Academy’s website.
The voting period runs from Feb. 14 through March 3. Three Twitter users who cast their votes will be selected for an all-expenses paid trip to Los Angeles to present an Oscar award at next year’s award show.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Twitter to help build an engaged and excited digital audience leading up to this year’s ceremony,” said Meryl Johnson, the Academy’s vice president of digital marketing, in a statement. “The Oscars are an opportunity to bring people around the world together through their shared movie love, and through these activations social media users around the world now have more opportunities to engage with the show in real-time, find a community and be a part of the experience in ways they’ve never been able to before.”
Another Twitter contest will run from Feb. 24 through March 3, with users voting on the #OscarsCheerMoment. For this new category, voters will decide on their favorite movie moment of 2021, and the winning scenes will be showcased during the Oscars with fan tweets. Five lucky people will receive tickets to a full year of free movies in a theater of their choice, streaming subscriptions and exclusive items from the Academy Museum Store.
In 2019, the Oscars tested the waters with a “most popular film” category that was envisioned to bring in more mainstream, commercial films to the awards race. However, it was short-lived and removed after pushback from critics and Oscar voters.
After “Spider-Man: No Way Home” earned more than $1.7 billion at the worldwide box office, Marvel fans were hopeful that its mass appeal would translate into a best picture nomination. Sadly, the universe-hopping Spidey film only received one nod in the visual effects category.
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