‘Aquaman’ director James Wan has said he thinks it’s a “fucking disgrace” that the film has been overlooked by this year’s Oscars for its special effects.
Last month, the Academy released the shortlist for several categories at the upcoming Oscars, including Best Original Song, Best Foreign Film and Visual Effects.
Of the 10 films nominated in the Visual Effects category, ‘Aquaman’ was nowhere to be seen, which its director has since voiced his disdain about on his Facebook page.
In a post celebrating the early success of ‘Aquaman’, visual effects supervisor Kelvin McIlwain wrote that it had been an “honour” to collaborate with James on the film, noting he hoped they could work together again in the future.
James responded: “You and your department are the unsung heroes of this film. The fact that your VFX [video effects] peers in the Academy aren’t recognising or appreciating what we/you’ve contributed to the film and cinema is a fucking disgrace.”
To this, Kelvin agreed: “I’m with you James. It’s a complete shock to everyone that we are not in the final 10 films… the selection process is very flawed in my opinion and too open to influence.”
These comments were first posted two weeks ago, but have only been picked up on more recently.
Among the 10 films that did make the shortlist were Marvel efforts ‘Ant-Man And The Wasp’, ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, as well as Disney’s ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ and ‘Christopher Robin’.
Also among the shortlisted films were ‘Star Wars’ origin story ‘Solo’, the ‘Jurassic World’ sequel ‘Fallen Kingdom’ and the Neil Armstrong biopic ‘First Man’.
Completing the line-up were ‘Welcome To Marwen’ and ‘Ready Player One’.
On Saturday, a screening was held at which 10 minutes’ worth of footage from each of these films was shown to Academy members, after which they narrowed it down to five which will eventually receive Oscar nominations.
The nominations will be announced in full on 22 January.