They’ve decided to only put one of the movies forward for the Best Picture award.
By and large, both Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War are and continue to be huge successes.
Black Panther has entered modern culture as the first black superhero movies (sorry Blade!), and went on to make $1.3 billion at the worldwide box office.
Avengers: Infinity War is the first step towards ending a 20-year-long story, with so many moving parts it should have failed, but spectacularly didn’t, and went on to make $2.047 billion at the box office.
However, when it comes to potential Oscar glory, Disney have decided to back just one of these horses, and have put Black Panther forward for Best Picture consideration.
On top of that, they’re also planning on putting the movie forward for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Song (for ‘All The Stars’ by Kendrick and SZA), and six more categories, too.
On the other hand, they’re putting Avengers: Infinity War forward for just one award: Best Visual Effects.
In the previous 17 films (not including Ant-Man & The Wasp), the entire canon of MCU movies have only been nominated nine times, and seven of those were for visual effects, with zero wins.
Remember, Suicide Squad did win an Oscar, but not a single MCU movie has managed to take a trophy home.
Whether or not Black Panther and/or Infinity War makes it to the actual nominations, we’ll find out in early 2019, and then the actual 91st Academy Awards will take place on Sunday 24 February.
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