Not for the first time, this year’s Oscar nominations showed a distinct lack of love for the superhero genre, with Spider-Man: No Way Home and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings only being nominated in the Best Visual Effects category. Despite being one of the best-reviewed movies on Rotten Tomatoes, climbing up the box office chart to become the sixth highest-grossing movie of all time, and the third-highest in the domestic box office, the Academy chose to exclude the Marvel epic from all the major categories, but a new fan selected award has renewed hopes of small consolation for the record-breaking movie that really defines the term “fan-favorite.”

While DC fans had hoped to get some recognition for Zack Snyder’s Justice League through the fan-voted route, their hopes were quickly dashed when the rules of the voting stated that the movies had to be one that was eligible for this year’s Academy Awards, which Snyder’s cut of the 2016 movie was not. However, Spider-Man fans came out in force to push for No Way Home to get some recognition for the impact it has had on the industry since its debut in December last year. At the same time, this may not get the Marvel Studio’s team another coveted little gold statuette to stand in its massively underwhelming Academy Award cabinet.

The voting for the fan award opened on Feb. 14th and runs through until Mar. 3rd, with voting done via Twitter hashtags. As well as the “Favorite 2021 Movie” vote, which uses the #OscarsFanFavorite tag, the Academy is also looking for nominations for a second competition to find the biggest celebratory moment of 2021 with the hashtag #OscarsCheerMoment. While it does sound from the brief that any movie can be voted for in this fun contest for fan pride, there is a list of qualifying movies to choose from, which is where Justice League’s following found themselves out of luck. The list of movies that can be chosen can be found here.

Spider-Man: No Way Home’s Oscar Snub Continues to Support Kevin Feige’s Claims of Superhero Movie Bias

It is hard to deny that Spider-Man: No Way Home was the biggest movie event since Avengers: Endgame in 2019, with audiences defying the effects of a global pandemic to make the movie one of the highest-grossing of all time. When it comes to awards, though, the Academy has always failed to see eye to eye with audiences over what deserves to be nominated for its accolades. Last year, before the arrival of Spider-Man: No Way Home in theaters, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige revealed that he believes there is a bias shown towards all superhero movies when it comes to the big awards and the Oscars snub has not countered that in any way.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter last year, Feige said, “I think we are always at a deficit because of the Marvel logo and because of a genre bias that certainly exists. I just loved that for a shining moment there with Black Panther that was put aside and the work was recognized for the achievement that it was... There are a lot of comic fans that didn’t know who Shang-Chi was. And yet the work that Destin did and Dave did and Sue did and Joel did, created something new that connected with audiences. We recognized it, the audience recognized it, and I sure would love the hard work of all of these people who are telling their story to get recognized.”

Whether fan power can see Spider-Man: No Way Home get a small consolatory mention at this year’s ceremony is something that will be revealed when the 94th Academy Awards are held next month.