We told you back in September that Focus Features was planning a big time awards season push for Curry Barker’s horror hit Obsession, both for the Golden Globes as well as the Academy Awards. The studio’s campaign is being described as “a wide-ranging effort from Focus Features that will seek recognition across nearly every category the film is eligible to enter.”
But which categories will the film aim to compete in? Well, here’s where things get interesting on the Golden Globes front. The Hollywood Reporter reveals this week that Focus Features is actually campaigning Obsession in the Musical/Comedy categories for next year’s Golden Globes.
Of course, there isn’t actually a Horror category at a show like the Golden Globes, leaving only two main options: Drama or Comedy/Musical. While most of us would probably argue that Obsession is more of a drama than it is a comedy, the reality is that Focus Features is making the decision based purely on how much of a chance they think the film has in one category over the other.
Focus Features is clearly thinking the film and its performances (the star-making turn from Inde Navarrette, in particular) would be far more likely to take home statues in the Comedy/Musical category than the Drama category, and that’s essentially how this whole thing works.
It was just last year that The Substance star Demi Moore took home the trophy for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes, after all.
THR details, “Many pundits assumed the film would be pushed as a drama, given that it chronicles the chaos and violence that ensues after a young man is granted his wish of a young woman loving him ‘more than anyone in the fucking world.’ But those associated with it insist that it plays like a comedy — audiences tend to laugh at the expressions, remarks and wilder behavior of Navarrette as the wish-version of Nikki Freeman, many of which have been turned into memes — and that Golden Globes voters themselves have indicated that they regard it as a comedy.”
“Moreover,” THR’s report goes on to explain, “insiders cite as precedents numerous other genre-blurring films that were submitted and accepted at the Globes in the musical or comedy categories, including Get Out, The Banshees of Inisherin, Triangle of Sadness, Poor Things, The Substance and Bugonia, all of which received best picture (musical/comedy) Golden Globe noms — Banshees and Poor Things, in fact, won — and went on to best picture Oscar noms.”
To be clear, Obsession has only been submitted for consideration by Focus Features at this time, which does not mean the film will actually end up getting nominated for any awards.
The nominations will be announced December 7. Stay tuned.
