On Sunday night, Colin Farrell won the Golden Globe for Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie for playing a DC Comics villain, the Penguin, in Max's. the penguin.
And finally, is there any faster path to awards season glory than taking a DC villain very seriously? Not at this moment.
Farrell has joined a small but notable group of actors who have earned statues for their work in comic book movies. Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker in Christopher Nolan's 2008 film. The dark knight broke the dam, in a way, bringing prestige to what until then had been seen as the high-paying job of acting as a costume in studio blockbusters. Ledger was posthumously awarded the Golden Globe and the Oscar for his work on the film. Eleven years later, Joaquin Phoenix would achieve the same double in awards for his work as “The Joker” in Joker. (Phoenix doesn't appear to be back in the Oscar conversation for 2024 Joker: Folie à Deux — quite the opposite!)
As Oscar prognosticators have noted over the years, DC's wins opened the door for the four-quadrant Marvel business to enter the awards conversation. black panther ultimately earned the studio a Best Picture nomination in 2019 (and a win for costume designer Ruth E. Carter), while Angela Bassett earned Marvel's first acting nomination, in Supporting Actress, for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. That's the closest the studio has come to awards glory and, based on current epic crossover plans, perhaps the closest it will get in the foreseeable future. It's much easier to let Robert Downey Jr. win his Oscar for a Nolan film than it is to fund an awards campaign for Doctor Doom.
In terms of cinematic success, Marvel and DC seem far apart. The MCU remains on the single-continuity path that producer Kevin Feige first trod in 2008. iron manwhile DC's strategy has seen one universe fade away (so long, Snyderverse), another appear in its place (hello, Gunniverse), and a few scattered one-offs succeed (good for you… Reevesverse?). Marvel's business is cohesive, perhaps to the point of failure? – and it's clear that DC is chasing that success.
But DC's James Gunn has said he wants the studio to be agile enough to veer in a multitude of directions. There will be films in continuity, first with their Superman this summer, and “Elseworlds” projects like the batman and the Joker movies. The hope is that filmmakers can tell exciting and dramatic stories within the confines of DC, but without their own style or demand for continuity. That way, you're following what's really worked for DC in the past and won awards, too.
Who will continue to prove the theory that DC villains have the awards juice? Gene Hackman won a BAFTA for playing his clown version of Lex Luthor in 1978. Supermanso there are many reasons to think NosferatuNicholas Hoult could garner critical acclaim as Gunn's version of the character. Although Paul Dano's Riddler was snubbed by the batmanthe recently delayed Batman part II could offer a new actor the kind of meaty role that crosses the Oscars. Or maybe Mike Flanagan's just-announced horror-tinged film Clayface is the ticket; Traditionally, the clingy villain is a whiny B-list actor out for revenge. The Academy loves movies about cinema.
The Globe is not the final award Farrell could win for playing the Penguin; The show is eligible for this year's Emmys, where the actor could win once again and remind people that Marvel money isn't everything.