‘So Popular’: Wooing Oscar voters with candles, candy, clothes and more
Blueberry pie-scented candles (Heretic). Emotion-themed Sugarfina candy boxes (Inside Out 2). Shiz University sweatshirts (Wicked).
That’s just a (literal) taste of some of the swag (aka promotional items) that have been sent out to voters this season by savvy awards campaigners. Lavishly bound screenplays, one-of-a-kind posters, T-shirts and the like are de rigueur for any self-respecting FYC team, and this season did not disappoint.
Disney-Pixar’s Inside Out 2 teamed up with luxury candy shop Sugarfina in an effort to remind voters to “consider every emotion” this Oscar season. All of your favorite characters from the box-office behemoth were represented in edible form, including Maya Hawke‘s Anxiety (peach bellini gummies), Phyllis Smith‘s Sadness (robin’s egg caramels), Ayo Edebiri‘s Envy (sour rainbows), Adèle Exarchopoulos‘ Ennui (birthday cake cookie bites), Amy Poehler‘s Joy (lemon shortbread cookie bites), Paul Walter Hauser‘s Embarrassment (rosé frosé wine gems), Liza Lapira‘s Disgust (pear Italian ice drops), Lewis Black‘s Anger (strawberry champagne bears), and Tony Hale‘s Fear (sparkle chocolate pops). A DVD of the family film was provided, too, and Academy members were encouraged to vote for Inside Out 2 in Best Picture, Best Animated Feature, and Best Adapted Screenplay — all while presumably having a tummy-ache from devouring the entire FYC box.
The team at A24 — blessed with an incredibly strong slate this season, including Sing Sing, Queer, The Brutalist, Babygirl, Heretic and more — assembled a goodie box brimming with tchotchkes themed to each of their contenders, including a milk glass and cookies (Babygirl), a disposable camera (Civil War), a kitchen timer (We Live in Time), among others. The swag box also including the year’s most aromatic offerings: a blueberry pie-scented candle to promote the Hugh Grant psychological thriller Heretic. In the film – which includes Grant impersonating Jar Jar Binks and explaining the musical connections between the Hollies’ “The Air That I Breathe,” Radiohead’s “Creep,” and Lana Del Rey’s “Get Free” – Grant’s character, Mr. Reed, tricks a pair of young Mormon missionaries (played by Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher) with the smell of his wife’s freshly baked pie. The twist? Mr. Reed has no wife, and the candle is part of his elaborate plan to make the girls feel at ease before he traps them in a life-or-death situation. At pre-release screenings, A24 lit the candles for an added Smell-o-Vision element. Now, even non-industry viewers can have a similar experience: the candle is available on the A24 website.
T-shirts poured in from studios promoting their top awards contenders. Universal gifted voters sleek Wicked tees in pink and black variations — appealing to both the Galindas and Elphabas of the Academy with “So Popular” and “Defy Gravity” messaging on the back. Bleecker Street got straight to the point promoting their Best Actress contender from Hard Truths — MARIANNE JEAN-BAPTISTE — written in all caps, no fluff, on a plain white tee. Netflix went for the laughs by featuring the many faces of Hit Man star Glen Powell — all circled around the shirtless actor wearing nothing but a towel on his head. For those colder nights, Universal sent out comfy sweatshirts from Wicked‘s Shiz University.
Books are turned into movies — then turned back into books for FYC. Among the volumes that filled voters’ mailboxes this season include a weighty 300-page tribute to The Piano Lesson crafted by luxury designer Assouline, a collection of Dune photography titled Exposures, and The Art of Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, a coffee table-size 176-page art book honoring the stop-motion film and others in the Wallace & Gromit franchise from creator Nick Park. Slick and rich with illustrations, it’s a beautifully constructed volume that charts the evolution of the sketches from concept to screen going back to A Grand Day Out in 1989. It even includes sketches of ditched concepts, too.
Given that movies are a visual medium, it’s no surprise that voters got their fair share of posters — but campaigners went the extra mile with signed originals like this Emilia Perez graphic, autographed by writer-director Jacques Audiard, or these color prints from The Wild Robot. Universal Pictures also produced their own volume The Art of The Wild Robot and sent out vinyl copies of Kris Bowers‘ score, while Focus Features mailed records of Volker Bertelmann‘s Conclave compositions and Robin Carolan‘s Nosferatu soundtrack. All three are on the Oscars shortlist for Best Original Score. Bowers is a past Oscar winner for his documentary short film “The Last Repair Shop” (2023), but would be a first-time nominee for his music. Bertelmann was Oscar-nominated for composing Lion (2016) before winning for All Quiet on the Western Front (2022). Carolan would be a first-time Oscar nominee. All three were recently nominated for BAFTA Awards for Best Original Score.
— Debra Birnbaum, Marcus James Dixon, Daniel Montgomery, Ray Richmond, Christopher Rosen