Disney officially pushing 'Black Panther' for Best Picture at the Oscars

Disney’s Oscar campaign for Marvel movie Black Panther is officially taking aim at the biggest prize of the night – Best Movie.

The Mouse House has published its ‘Awards 2018’ page, and Ryan Coogler’s movie is being put forward ‘for your consideration’ in ‘All Categories’, Best Picture included.

In addition, Coogler is being put forward for Best Director, Chadwick Boseman for Best Actor, and pretty much all the principle characters for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, including Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira.

It’s a bold move for the studio, considering that superhero films scarcely come home with statues at the movie industry’s biggest night of the year.

The film became embroiled in the recently-rescinded plan to include a new category at this year’s show, the Best Popular Film award.

Some speculated that it was a transparent – and potentially patronising – gambit to see that Black Panther went home with a major award on the night.

The plan for the new category has now been ‘delayed’ by the Academy.

In recent years, only The Dark Knight and Logan have seen significant nominations outside of the usual special effects and technical categories, with Heath Ledger winning Best Supporting Actor posthumously for his role of The Joker in Christopher Nolan’s 2008 film.

Logan was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay last year, but lost out to James Ivory for Call Me By Your Name.

The fact that blockbuster movies like those from the Marvel Cinematic Universe do the heavy lifting in terms of keeping the movie business ticking over is clearly not lost on Disney.

Black Panther alone made $1.3 billion, more than $700 million of which came from the domestic US box office, beating Avengers: Infinity War’s haul on its home turf (though the latter movie made just over $2 billion worldwide).

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