Disney seemingly aren’t content with Avengers: Endgame simply being the highest-grossing movie of all time, as it also looks like they’re setting the superhero epic up for a huge awards campaign. On the studio’s ‘For Your Consideration’ page on their website, the twenty-second installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is listed alongside Toy Story 4, Aladdin, The Lion King and the still-to-be released Frozen 2 as the Mouse House’s potential big hitters for the Academy Awards.
While Aladdin and The Lion King will likely receive a couple of nominations in the technical and possibly music categories, and Toy Story 4 is virtually guaranteed a win for Best Animated Feature, Endgame has a realistic shot at landing on the shortlist for some of the major categories. Superhero movies don’t really tend to do so well when it comes to the Academy Awards, but recent years have seen Logan up for Best Adapted Screenplay, with Black Panther also becoming the first comic book movie to be nominated for Best Picture.
Obviously, there will be debates as to whether or not Endgame is really deserving of being named one of the best movies of the last twelve months. As a feat of technical filmmaking and shared universe storytelling, there’s no doubt that the movie is an incredible achievement, but the question remains whether or not it stands on its own merits as an awards-worthy feature, as opposed serving as the satisfying culmination of over a decade’s worth of interconnected narratives.
However, the Academy have recently been expanding and diversifying their membership, which does give big budget movies more chance of landing the big nods than ever before. It may not be able to land the most important one, but Avengers: Endgame nonetheless has a great chance of at least ending up on the shortlist for Best Picture, with the Russo brothers also adamant that Robert Downey Jr. is deserving of some recognition for his emotional sign-off as Iron Man.
