Kevin Smith isn’t happy with the Academy for snubbing “Spider-Man: No Way Home” in the best picture race. Despite earning critical acclaim and being one of the highest-grossing films ever made with over $750 million in the U.S. and over $1.7 billion globally, the latest “Spider-Man” film earned just a single Oscar nomination. The film will compete in the visual effects race. Not even the Academy expanding the best picture category to 10 nominees was enough to get “Spider-Man: No Way Home” a nomination for the Oscars’ biggest prize.
“What the fuck?” Smith said on his FatMan Beyond podcast this week (via IndieWire). “They got 10 slots, they can’t give one to the biggest fucking movie of like the last three years?”
Smith continued, “Man, and they’re like, ‘Why won’t anyone watch this show?’ Like fucking make a populist choice, fuck, man. You got how many slots? Throw in Spider-Man for God’s sakes. Let him swing in there. Fucking poor kid’s always getting crapped on and shit, show Peter Parker some fucking love. I’m not even being facetious, with as many movies as they have nominated for Best Picture…”
Smith’s opinion mirrors Jimmy Kimmel, who made headlines earlier this week for expressing shock over Netflix’s star-studded “Don’t Look Up” making the cut for best picture over “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” Both Kimmel’s late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” share a parent company in Disney.
“How did [‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’] not get one of the 10 nominations for best picture?” Kimmel asked viewers. “Forget the fact that the movie made $750 million [in the U.S.] and is still going. This was a great movie. It wasn’t in the top 10 best movies of the year? There were three Spider-Men in it. You’re telling me ‘Don’t Look Up’ was better than ‘Spider-Man?’ It most certainly was not.”
Oscar ratings, or the lack thereof, have come up frequently in discussions following this year’s nominations and the “Spider-Man” best picture snub. While Seth Rogen didn’t hit on “Spider-Man,” he did go viral this week for sharing his opinion that “maybe people just don’t care” about the Oscars anymore.
“I don’t get why movie people care so much if other people care what awards we give ourselves,” Rogen said. “To me, maybe people just don’t care. I don’t care who wins the automobile awards. No other industry expects everyone to care about what awards they shower upon themselves. Maybe people just don’t care. Maybe they did for a while and they stopped caring. And why should they?”
The 2022 Oscars are set to take place Sunday, March 27.