{"id":7978947,"date":"2026-03-15T08:10:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T15:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/?p=7978947"},"modified":"2026-03-15T08:10:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T15:10:44","slug":"oscars-2026-warner-bros-industry-problems-iran-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/industry-news\/awards\/oscars-2026-warner-bros-industry-problems-iran-war\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Time for the Oscars, So Never Mind the Slumping Industry and the War"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

At the heart of this year\u2019s Academy Awards<\/a>, there\u2019s a wonderfully suspenseful<\/a> Best Picture race between two great films from remarkable filmmakers, Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d and Ryan Coogler\u2019s \u201cSinners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s all the stuff surrounding<\/em> that race that has made this a messy, troubled and exhausting season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let\u2019s start with the good news, OK? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d and \u201cSinners\u201d appear to be locked in one of the tightest Best Picture races in many years, and both are the kind of bold, entertaining films that it\u2019s easy to embrace and root for. Most \u201cOne Battle\u201d fans I know would be accepting of a \u201cSinners\u201d win, and vice versa; this isn\u2019t a \u201cThe King\u2019s Speech\u201d vs. \u201cThe Social Network\u201d or \u201cGreen Book\u201d vs. \u201cRoma\u201d or \u201cCODA\u201d vs. \u201cThe Power of the Dog\u201d battle where devotees of one frontrunner were upset at the idea of its rival winning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And beyond Best Picture, three of the four acting races appear to be genuinely suspenseful: Michael B. Jordan, Timothee Chalamet, Wagner Moura and Ethan Hawke are all potential Best Actor winners, while the supporting races feature Sean Penn and Amy Madigan as shaky frontrunners and Stellan Skarsgard, Delroy Lindo, Wunmi Mosaku and Teyana Taylor as entirely possible winners.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"One\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\tRead Next<\/strong>
\n\t\t\tOscar Predictions: It's 'One Battle After Another' vs. 'Sinners' in One Battle for the Ages<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

On the face of it, the Oscar show is likely to be a triumph for Warner Bros., which released both \u201cOne Battle\u201d and \u201cSinners,\u201d and for Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, whose string of successes<\/a> wiped out memories of their rocky early tenure at the studio and seems destined to culminate in triumph at the Dolby Theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Michael B. Jordan in “Sinners,” Leonardo DiCaprio in “One Battle After Another” (Credit: Warner Bros.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The studio dominated the 2025 box office with $4 billion out of the industry’s total of $8.8 billion, and a victory by either film would be the studio\u2019s 10th Best Picture winner, making Warners the fifth studio to hit double digits after Columbia (12), United Artists (12), Paramount (11) and Universal (10). (The other WB winners were \u201cThe Life of Emile Zola,\u201d \u201cCasablanca,\u201d \u201cMy Fair Lady,\u201d \u201cChariots of Fire,\u201d \u201cDriving Miss Daisy,\u201d \u201cUnforgiven,\u201d \u201cMillion Dollar Baby,\u201d \u201cThe Departed\u201d and \u201cArgo.\u201d) It would be the first WB winner in 13 years, since \u201cArgo\u201d in 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But would it be the last? Aye, there\u2019s the rub. With Warner Bros. Discovery set to be acquired by David Ellison\u2019s Paramount, the fate of the studio has kept Hollywood buzzing for months \u2013 and while Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav talked up the slate that De Luca and Abdy are preparing for 2026, 2027 and 2028 at the studio\u2019s salute to its Oscar nominees on Friday night at Mother Wolf in Hollywood, uncertainty hangs over the studio<\/a> even in its moment of presumed Oscar glory. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\""Superman"\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\tRead Next<\/strong>
\n\t\t\tThe Best 2025 Movies the Oscars Ignored<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the Oscars arrive as uncertainty afflicts the entire entertainment industry, and in particular theatrical film. Which means that every reason to celebrate on Sunday night will arrive accompanied by big question marks about the art form that\u2019s being celebrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there are those other question marks about the world that have little to do with the entertainment industry and everything to do with geopolitical turmoil. The last time the Academy Awards took place just after the U.S. had launched an attack on a country in the Middle East, it was 2003 and the war in Iraq shook the Oscars to its core. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, we\u2019re at war (or whatever the administration wants to call it today) with Iran, and the effect on the show remains to be seen. Will it be mentioned from the stage of the Dolby? Of course it will. Will it dominate speeches or produce another Michael Moore \u201cShame on you, Mr. Bush!\u201d<\/a> moment? That probably depends on who wins, though I wouldn\u2019t bet against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, maybe people will be too exhausted to get worked up on stage, given that the awards season has been so long, ending on the third Sunday of March. If you discount 2021, when the show was delayed by two months by the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2022, when it was delayed by one month, the last time the ceremony was this late in March was 2003, that same wartime show that produced Moore\u2019s speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otherwise, the shows have typically taken place in late February, with a detour into the first week of March every four years because of the Winter Olympics. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"75th\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\tRead Next<\/strong>
\n\t\t\tRemember When a War in the Middle East Completely Disrupted the Oscars?<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

This year’s elongated schedule, which was instituted partly to give voters more time to see all the films, has drawn a fair amount of grumbling on the awards circuit in recent weeks. \u201cWhy have we spent the last two weeks talking about ballet and cats?\u201d scoffed one Best Picture nominee on Friday, referring to the media tempests-in-teapots over Timothee Chalamet\u2019s dismissive remarks about ballet and opera and Jessie Buckley\u2019s three-month-old comments about not getting along with one of her husband-to-be\u2019s cats. \u201cThat\u2019s what you get when the season stretches out this long.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real question facing the Academy and ABC, though, isn\u2019t whether the nominees and industry figures are turned off by the endless awards season \u2013 it\u2019s whether potential viewers will want to tune in to watch an awards show devoted to movies that for the most part haven\u2019t been in theaters for weeks. The network\u2019s streak of broadcasting Oscar shows, which began 51 years ago, will end in two years on the heels of the 100th ceremony, and neither the Academy nor ABC wants the impending move to YouTube to be preceded by dismal ratings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year\u2019s ceremony drew just shy of 20 million viewers. Hitting that figure would have seemed disappointing only six years ago, but now it would feel like an accomplishment, after viewership bottomed out at 10.4 million the year of COVID and has slowly climbed back up since then. As for the days that routinely brought 40 million-plus viewers, those seem to be long gone, though they were really only 12 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that\u2019s the big challenge as Oscar night (or, in the Pacific Time Zone, Oscar late afternoon) arrives: Will a tight race between two very good movies that have made almost $600 million between them be enough to overcome a late date, a slumping industry and a war?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the long run, that’s a bigger and more important question than “What’s gonna win?”<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n\t\tBest Picture\t<\/h2>\n\t
\n\t\tContender<\/span>\n\t\tProbability<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  1. \n\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOne Battle After Another<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tProbability:<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t99%\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tNo change:<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t0% –<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t