Filmmaker and host of the Fatman Beyond podcast Kevin Smith was seemingly infuriated by the absence of Spider-Man: No Way Home in the Oscar run for Best Picture. The biggest MCU hit from 2021, the third leg of the Web Crawler's rejuvenated run went on to break box office records and even earned a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes. As a result, it may be underwhelming to fans that the blockbuster hit only earned one Oscar nomination, for that of visual effects.
Smith has been rather vocal with his opinions regarding the matter, as he took to the Fatman Beyond podcast to voice his views. According to him, it is rather surprising that the Oscars could not squeeze in Spider-Man: No Way Home in the run for Best Picture, although the category has increased the number of nominees from five to ten.
They got 10 slots, they can’t give one to the biggest f---ing movie of, like, the last three years?... Man, and they’re like, ‘Why won’t anyone watch this show?’ Like fucking make a populist choice, f---, man. You got how many slots? Throw in Spider-Man for God’s sakes. Let him swing in there. F-----g poor kid's always getting crapped on and s---. Show Peter Parker some f-----g love. I'm not even being facetious, with as many movies as they now nominate for Best Picture. . It used to be five? …
Rather surprisingly, the podcast episode featuring the aforementioned rant got subsequently taken down from YouTube. In a follow-up video, Smith added:
Kids, the conspiracy is real. I spoke about Spider-Man not being nominated by the Academy, and we got tossed off of the YouTube. Tie those two things together. The truth lies somewhere out there.
The ten movies that made it to the Oscar run for Best Picture this year are Belfast, CODA, Don't Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, The Power of the Dog, and West Side Story. Although all the films can be considered equally deserving, the disappointment regarding Spider-Man's absence remains.
Jimmy Kimmel Joined the Rally Against Spider-Man: No Way Home's Oscar Snub
The comedian-turned-TV show host Jimmy Kimmel seems to be singing the same song as Kevin Smith regarding Spider-Man: No Way Home's Oscar snub. However, it is worth noting that Kimmel's late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Spider-Man: No Way Home are both owned by the parent company, Disney.
Kimmel took the argument one step further and named the films that the most successful MCU film from last year could have replaced in the Oscar run.
How did [‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’] not get one of the 10 nominations for best picture?... Forget the fact that the movie made $750 million [in the U.S.] and is still going. This was a great movie. It wasn’t in the top 10 best movies of the year? There were three Spider-Men in it. You’re telling me ‘Don’t Look Up’ was better than ‘Spider-Man?’ It most certainly was not.
While Kimmel's comment leaves room for a lot of argument, many fans and moviegoers have agreed that the third leg of Spidey's MCU journey deserved the crowning nomination. Then again, many have similarly argued about other films that seem to have been left out from the Best Picture run, like Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth, for instance.