Oscar race experts give low-down on 'take no prisoners' campaign for best picture

With no clear front-runner, and audience favourites like Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book embroiled in controversy, the Oscars' best picture race has become a fierce and unpredictable campaign for the academy's top award.

While Netflix is reportedly spending millions of dollars to promote its first-ever best picture nominee Roma, Universal Pictures is trying to navigate continuing bad press for Green Book, and Bohemian Rhapsody is trying to separate itself from its shunned director.

CBC talked to a pair of Oscar race experts to help break down all the high-stakes manoeuvres ahead of Sunday night's ceremony.

Green Book called out

Green Book, based on the unlikely real-life friendship between white chauffeur Tony Lip and black musician Don Shirley in the 1960s, became a major Academy Awards contender after winning the Golden Globe for best picture. But scrutiny soon followed.

First, Nick Vallelonga, Tony Lip's son and co-writer of the screenplay, was called out for posting an anti-Muslim tweet in 2015. His Twitter account was soon deleted and he's all but disappeared from the award season campaign scene.

Then, director Peter Farrelly was forced to apologize after a 1998 interview re-surfaced that revealed the filmmaker would expose himself as a joke during the production of the hit comedy There's Something About Mary.

And when the family of Shirley came forward and expressed disapproval over the way he was portrayed, it forced cast members and filmmakers to respond.

"At the end of the day, you wish everybody was happy in any situation," said actor Mahershala Ali, after winning the Golden Globe Award in January for his role as Shirley. "You don't want anybody to be upset about anything or be offended in any capacity."

And all this after co-star Viggo Mortensen was criticized for using the n-word during a Q&A session following a screening of the film last year. He later apologized.

Stu Zakim, a New Jersey-based communications strategist and member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, says no one knows for sure where the stories originate, but it's not uncommon for competitors to look for dirt and exploit weaknesses.

"This is like a political campaign," Zakim said. "Take no prisoners. There's a lot of money and power at stake in winning an Oscar."

Zakim, who worked on Oscar campaigns for award-winning films such as Jurassic Park, Apollo 13, Schindler's List and Kramer vs. Kramer, says a best picture trophy can score a studio better streaming deals, more international interest and increased box office sales upon re-release. In other words, more money.

He says so-called whisper campaigns are one way to sabotage a film or actor's momentum.

"When you're sitting down to pick which movie or which actor or which cinematographer or music that you're voting for, things can come up in your head, and at that last minute, make you go to another film or another actor," he said.

Which might explain why best actor front-runner Rami Malek has been so reluctant to address the controversy around Bohemian Rhapsody, in which he plays the late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.

Bohemian Rhapsody woes

Director Bryan Singer was fired part way through filming but maintains the only director credit. An article in The Atlantic accused him of repeated sexual misconduct as far back as 1998, which Singer has denied. He's also facing a lawsuit accusing him of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old boy in 2003. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts suspended Singer's BAFTA nomination for Bohemian Rhapsody as a result.

Malek has stuck to a message track about trying to keep the focus on the film rather than discussing any external factors.

"I'd rather celebrate everything we're here to support," he abruptly told CBC News after winning a Screen Actors Guild award in January and being asked about Bohemian Rhapsody's awards season journey.

Malek briefly addressed the topic of Singer after facing a backlash for being tight-lipped, saying during a panel discussion at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in late January that his experience working with Singer was "not pleasant."

Netflix 'spending through the roof' on Roma

The best picture race is proving to be anyone's game, with shifting leads and changing odds.

The Dick Cheney biopic Vice and regal cat-and-mouse dramedy The Favourite, which earned a whopping 10 Oscar nominations, have been critical darlings but neither had a large presence in theatres. The Bradley Cooper-Lady Gaga tragic romance A Star Is Born was seen as an early shoo-in on the film festival circuit but lost momentum as the season progressed.

Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman, based on the true story of a black police detective who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, and Ryan Coogler's Afrocentric superhero blockbuster, Black Panther, are positioned as underdogs with strong, politically relevant messages.

And Roma, which also received 10 nods, is poised to make history if it snags best picture — it would become the first foreign language film and first feature from a streaming service to win the award.

Millions of dollars are being spent on ads, screenings, and meet-and-greets with the stars of each film. All designed to woo voters.

"You would think, based on the amount of billboards you're seeing for Roma in Los Angeles, that this is an Avengers film," said Kyle Buchanan, the "carpetbagger" awards season columnist for the New York Times. "But it is actually Netflix's best hope at getting a best picture winner, and if they do that, all bets are off."

"No filmmaker would turn down the opportunity to make a dream project at Netflix, because the company is essentially saying, 'Go with us and we can get you everything you would've wanted as a theatrical distributor.' So they're spending through the roof on this movie," he said.

That includes hiring renowned awards strategist Lisa Taback to work exclusively with Netflix on its Academy Awards campaign. Taback formerly worked as a strategist for disgraced media mogul Harvey Weinstein, who was notoriously ruthless — and successful — when it came to securing best picture wins. She worked on campaigns for Oscar winners The King's Speech, Shakespeare in Love and The English Patient.

Managing social media scandals

Buchanan and Zakim say it's not unusual for a major studio to spend up to $10 million US on an Oscar campaign. The toxic social media environment that can torpedo such an investment with one tweet or viral remark is also spawning a new business model.

Foresight, for example, is a new venture that allows a studio to hire both a PR agency and a cyber-intelligence security firm in one "to vet people before they get into a public role, so they can identify any of these booby traps along the way," Zakim says.

Perhaps as a knee-jerk form of damage control, Vallelonga has all but disappeared from Green Book's award season campaigning. And at a recent press event in Los Angeles, Farrelly posed for photos but refused to answer any questions from reporters.

Buchanan believes Malek will likely be able to rise above Bohemian Rhapsody's bad publicity to score a best actor award. But people will feel much less comfortable handing the film a best picture trophy given its unsettling history.

However, the chances for Green Book, he says, remain strong.

"I think that the Green Book voters are going to vote Green Book pretty much no matter what," he said. "The online conversation about it, though, is probably going to render a potential win for Green Book super controversial."

Watch: The controversy behind awards season campaigns