Bookies Now Making a Song & Dance Over the 2024 Oscars
If the bookmakers are correct, and they are rarely far away in film and television betting, Oppenheimer will win big at the 96th Academy Awards. The three-hour biographical thriller has received nominations in 13 categories. It is odds-on to win the Oscar in nine of them.
Florence Pugh, Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas, Robert Downey Jr., Charles Roven, Matt Damon and Ludwig Göransson accepted the award for Best Motion Picture – Drama for ‘Oppenheimer’ at the 81st Golden Globe Awards. Nominated in eight categories, the film won five awards on the night. It could do even better at the Academy Awards. ©GettyImages
Numerically, Poor Things produces the stiffest opposition with 11 award nominations and another epic, the 206-minute Killer of The Flower Moon, has received ten nominations. Despite its controversial omission from the Best Director, Best Actress and Best Actor categories, Barbie is predicted to collect a handful of Oscars from its eight nominations.
In this article, we look at the 2024 Oscars betting markets. Hosted by comedian Jimmy Kimmel, the awards will be meted out during a customary glitzy Hollywood awards ceremony on March 10. Value is thin on the ground, but deep down the list of 23 awards, there are a few attractive betting propositions.
Oppenheimer for the Money and the Glory
The highest-grossing films rarely convert their box office success into an Academy Award Best Picture goal. Remarkably, only two of this century’s Best Picture Oscar winners – Gladiator in 2001 and Lord of The Rings (2004) – appeared amongst the ten highest-grossing films of the prior year.
However, Oppenheimer is predicted to buck the trend. Costing $100 million to make and yielding $952 million at global box offices, the three-hour epic was the third highest-grossing movie of 2023. At 888 Sport’s 1/8 odds, it is the shortest-priced candidate for the Best Picture Oscar since Slumdog Millionaire in 2008.
Like all categories, this is a win-only market. Consequently, the prices of the ‘also rans’ have not been adjusted to discourage each-way thieves. The social betting sites have Poor Things and The Holdovers priced on 10/1 and 12/1. Barbie – commercially the biggest success of 2023 with $1.4 billion in takings – is 25/1.
A Meltdown if Nuclear Epic Does Not Convert the Odds
Oppenheimer is even shorter in the Academy Award’s Best Director category. Its helmsman, Christopher Nolan is 1/16 to win the prize. He has one previous Best Director nomination on his CV – for Dunkirk in 2018. At similarly prohibitive odds, Robbie Downey Jr. is 1/10 to gain Oppenheimer the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
Oppenheimer’s lead actor, Cillian Murphy is 4/11 to win the Best Actor prize for the film. The Irishman’s chief rival is Paul Giamatti. Oscar betting sites have Giamatti, who won the Golden Globe for Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, for his part in the Christmas flick The Holdovers, priced on 5/2.
There should be less sweat for Oppenheimer in The Best Film Editing category, where 1/6 is the top offer price. Best Sound is another Oscar that is destined to go to Oppenheimer. 1/10 is the best odds you will find anywhere.
Gladstone’s Globe Form Is Golden
It appears there are only small crumbs for Oppenheimer’s rivals at the 2024 Oscars. A lack of representation in the Best Actress category has created an intriguing match-up between Poor Things actress Emma Stone and Killers of The Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone.
Stone, a 20-year acting veteran, has three previous Oscar nominations on her CV, and she won the Best Actress award in 2016 for her role in La La Land. Gladstone is a relative low-flier who never came to the public’s attention until 2016, when she appeared in the moderately successful Certain Women.
At the prices – Oscar betting sites quote Stone on 4/5 and Gladstone on 11/8 – we like the underdog. The 37-year-old won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. She has also been given an additional dozen ‘Best Actress’ awards from critic societies and associations.
Most with a casual interest in the movie award season will know there is a strong correlation between the Golden Globe results and the corresponding accolades at the Oscars. In the 2010s, The Best Actress Academy Award went to the corresponding Golden Globe winner seven times.
Since 2001, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago (2002), The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), The Artist (2011), Argo (2012), 12 Years a Slave (2013), Moonlight (2016), Greenbook (2018), Nomadland (2020) The Power Of The Dog (2022) have all won a Best Picture Globe and then doubled up in the Best Picture category at the Academy Awards.
Can Godzilla Finally Bring the House Down?
Bookmakers believe another tight run race will be the Best Visual Effects voting. Its chief protagonists are the $80 million sci-fi action movie The Creator and the 38th Godzilla franchise film, Godzilla Minus One.
Remarkably, 2024 represents the first time a Godzilla movie has received an Oscar nomination. Taking ten times its $10 million production cost at the box office, the latest Godzilla movie has been a big commercial success. The Creator has earned two Oscar nominations. It is 25/1 for Best Sound but shares even-money favouritism with Godzilla Minus One in the Best Visual Effects category.
The lack of previous recognition for Godzilla movies – and there have been nine in the last decade alone – suggests Academy members are not enamoured with this comic book genre. Making it through the Oscar nomination process has been groundbreaking stuff for its Japanese makers, but the ride could stop here.
Interestingly, a 2014 American ‘Godzilla’ movie was directed by Gareth Edwards. The Englishman is the director of The Creator, which stars Denzil Washington’s son, John Davis, and features music from the famed composer and multi-award winner Hans Zimmer.
