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 Unlike last year when "12 Years a Slave," and "Gravity,"
emerged from the Toronto, Venice and Telluride festivals as
solid front-runners for awards, the fate of the 2014 class is
more uncertain. There are many acclaimed films on the horizon,
but the race for February's Academy Awards is wide open.
One strong contender is Toronto's top winner "The Imitation
Game," the biopic of British World War Two code breaker Alan
Turing, who was later persecuted for being gay. Turing is played
by the popular Benedict Cumberbatch, a casting choice that
likely helped the movie win the public-voted best film prize.
Toronto's victor last year, "12 Years a Slave," won the Oscar
best picture in a showdown with "Gravity."
"It is a great place to present a film, said Michael Barker,
co-president of Sony's art-house unit Sony Pictures Classics,
which showcased nine films at North America's top festival.
"The presentation, the aura, the atmosphere - the best place for
critics and exhibitors to see the film with the kind of
responsive audience."
He and co-president Tom Bernard presented Sundance winner
"Whiplash," about a jazz drummer obsessed with perfection, and
Cannes favorite "Foxcatcher" starring an unrecognizable Steve
Carell as a du Pont family scion who murders a wrestling champ.
Both films have received critical acclaim and Sony waited to
release them in the fall to increase their awards potential.
The Weinstein Co., the awards season powerhouse behind "The
Imitation Game," also came out of Toronto with momentum for "St.
Vincent," starring Bill Murray as a hard-living curmudgeon and
unlikely mentor to a boy. It won the second runner-up prize.
'A SPECTACULAR FALL'
Other films that stood out at Toronto were "The Theory of
Everything," a biopic of British physicist Stephen Hawking and
Reese Witherspoon's "Wild," based on the best-selling memoir of
a woman fighting her demons on a long wilderness trek.
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Then there is "Birdman," starring Michael Keaton as a faded movie
star trying to jump-start his career in a biting statement about
American celebrity. It opened Venice to rave reviews.
"I think you are going to have a spectacular fall," said Barker.
"It's very regrettable that everybody waits to the fall because some
are not going to survive at the box office."
A new player to the scene, Saban Films, is undaunted by the
competition. The distributor set up by media mogul Haim Saban is
releasing its first film "The Homesman," a Western directed by actor
Tommy Lee Jones and acquired in Cannes, the same day as "Foxcatcher,"
on Nov. 14.
"Some people might call that dangerous," said Saban Films President
Bill Bromiley. But, he added, "the more something else succeeds, the
more it drives people to go to the movies and allows them to open up
their minds to other choices."
Despite the successful year for smaller films including
coming-of-age tale "Boyhood" and Wes Anderson's "Grand Budapest
Hotel," the market for buying films in Toronto was subdued.
"People are not looking at this place as a market like they used
to," said Bernard, who noted that Sony Pictures Classics was much
more active at Sundance and Cannes.
Bromiley, who acquired three films there, called it "a very mediocre
market."
"I think people were looking forward to some films that didn't turn
out quite as good as we had hoped," he said.
(Reporting by Mary Milliken; Editing by Grant McCool)
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