(Reuters) – One of the few places where the Harry Potter movies
failed to weave their magic was the Oscars, and the blockbuster franchise’s failure to win a single Academy Award in eight
attempts still rankles with some key players.
The series,
based on J.K. Rowling’s best-selling boy wizard stories, was nominated for 12 Oscars over its 10-year history, in the art
direction, visual effects, makeup, cinematography, costume design and music categories.
Each time it went away
empty-handed, to the growing frustration of the cast and crew that worked on one of the most successful film franchises in
history.
The final chance came with the concluding installment “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2”,
released last year and shortlisted for art direction, makeup and visual effects.
In two of those categories it was
beaten by Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo”, while the makeup award ended up going to Margaret Thatcher biopic “The Iron
Lady”.
“I think a lot of us look fairly wryly at the politics of the American Academy (of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences), of which I am a member,” said John Richardson, special effects supervisor on the Harry Potter movies.
“It
does beg the question why did Harry Potter not get recognized at all for the last Deathly Hallows film?” he told Reuters at
the press launch of the new Potter studio tour at Leavesden Studios just outside London.
“We got three nominations
from the … Academy for probably one of the best-made and best-grossing films of the year, whereas a Martin Scorsese film,
Hugo, which wasn’t anything like as successful, won three awards, or was it four?”
In fact it was five — art
direction, cinematography, sound editing and mixing and visual effects.
Deathly Hallows – Part 2 earned $1.3 billion
in global ticket sales, according to Boxofficemojo.com, making it the third biggest movie of all time before inflation is
taken into account. It was also a critical hit.
Nick Dudman, in the special makeup effects department, agreed that
Potter films had been wrongly overlooked.
“We keep losing,” he told Reuters. “Potter has been very largely ignored by
academies around the world, and it is slightly strange.
“But the work is its own reward in many ways. We make fabulous
things, we have a great time doing it.”
Richardson said one reason why the Potter films failed to land any Oscars may
have been the voting system, whereby the Academy’s entire active membership can select winners in every category during the
final ballot stage.
The BAFTAs, Britain’s equivalent, differ in that all members can vote on eight main categories,
but for every other nomination only those with specialist knowledge of that particular field can participate.
“The
final (BAFTA) vote is a chapter vote, so the award is voted by your peers, if you like.
“It so happens that we won the
BAFTA, but I think it gives a truer critique of the work rather than being voted on by, with due deference to everybody, a
lot of people who don’t necessarily understand the work or technology that’s involved in creating the film.”
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Deathly Hallows – Part 2 won the special visual effects
BAFTA, beating Hugo, although Scorsese’s film did trump Potter in the sound and production design
categories.
Richardson has been nominated six times for an Oscar, three of them for a Potter movie. He has won once,
for “Aliens”.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
