While Army of the Dead, Cinderella, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Minamata, and Tick, Tick...Boom!, have all ranked at the top of the fan favorite list, the ultimate winner of the first-ever 2022 Fan Favorite Award Oscar (but not really an Academy Award winner), goes to Zack Snyder's zombie action film Army of the Dead.
Yes, the same film that was undoubtedly looked over during the initial nomination process has received some sort of notice for its innovative, fun, and transformative work. Following the events from a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries goes to the extreme in setting out into the dangerous quarantine zone. Fellow fans who absolutely fell in love with this project all around the world, banded together to make their voices heard in awarding their faves themselves.
So what exactly does this new category mean, and how does the fan favorite award transform the Academy?
The Backstory of the Fan Favorite Award
Well, to be quite honest, it's still a work in progress.
Back in February, the academy announced that Twitter users would have the opportunity, for the first time ever that is, to vote on their favorite movies of 2021. Despite the fact that said film received a nomination or not, the main point in this newest move has been to include active viewers in the program's celebration, as a perspective winner is decided by the list of nominated films (placed by active fans) who accumulates the most votes. With the ceremony's 2021 ratings being surprisingly low, producers and fellow ABC executives set out to find more interactive ways to include viewers in this present year.
From the time frame of February 14th (when the award was initially announced) to March 3rd (as voting closed), Twitter users were able to either vote on Twitter or on the Academy's official website, as much as 20 times per day.
Beforehand the Academy had encouraged viewers to submit their personal favorite movies of 2021 for nominations using the hashtag #OscarsCheerMoment, what many of us should first know is that the winner won't exactly receive an Academy Award. The film that earns the most votes will be recognized during the telecast, however will not be awarded with a physical Oscar trophy.
As the overall structure of this new category brings an unpredictable element, in the sense that the traditional "projected" nominees to win are unknown to most of the public (also eliminating the endless speculation tied to who will win or who won't), theirs some sense of excitement in being kept on your toes throughout a four-hour-long show.
Although somewhere down the line we all would love to see an award-winning movie actually win an Oscar trophy, because that's kind of the point of the Oscars, right. It's refreshing to see that films that fans have directly voted for are receiving the recognition that they deserve. The same fans who go out and pay to watch these films finally are able to have a voice, even if it's simply for one category.