Meh, I don't think the "race card" is much of a hand. Its one card, not a five set. Dreamgirls has alot not going for it as well, including that two of its three female leads are popstars under the age of 21. There's a bit of undrestanding that the young ones still have their entire careers before them, and its not like anyone in the Academy feels they exactly "owe" any love to Foxx at this point.

On the other hand, the Academy is notoriously losing youth audiences, and may very well go in for a couple pop-culture young actresses provided they actually do a decent job.

A nom? Probably. Its hitting the last leg of the year and there has been nothing promising a strong challenge. A win? Probably, nay, definately not.

In addition, for all the gossip machine, the trailer for this, dare I say it, looks incredibly mediocre. I don't know where the production budget went, unless everyone of those scenes failed to make the couple minutes of trailer.

And as an aside, Beyonce's roles in past movies may not have been more than skin deep, but I found her to be quite a natural, and definately not someone who is hesitant or has poor timing.

Meh. Its still anyone's guess. The Academy has given heavily "ethnic" casts the go ahead before, and its most always been in musicals (Ray, West Wide Story, etc) but it hasn't been that often. Mostly because such productions tend to have less access to budget and resources in the first place. But now that this is changing, I anticipate the production and reception divide getting smaller and smaller.

And the Oscar for most indecisive post regarding Dreamgirls goes to...

Mostly because you can argue until you're blue in the face about the cast's age and racial make-up, but when push comes to shove the movie at least has to be decent fare. You've seen that trailer probably more times than I have. Its mediocre and dissappointing...kind of like my general experience with many aspects of the media entertainment business as of late.

Actually Ray was financed independently & distributed by Universal. It reportedly cost $40 million & that likely doesn't include p&a costs. At best that's at the low end of what would be termed a mid-budget pic.

I didn't say that Ray had a huge budget, I'm saying it wasn't viewed as a low budget film. Either way, what does it matter? You're making an argument that really won't hurt Dreamgirls. Looking at the rest of the post, I think we actually have a trend here.

Are you really trying to shoot down Dreamgirls through overseas returns?

No, I'm making the point that black stars don't have much box office clout o'seas (which is true) & therefore a less than stellar result could damage perceptions of the film as a would be Oscar champ. A film full of black faces is going to impact on the intl gross. Geffen & co know this perfectly well but I guess their thinking is the film has so much else going for it that it's not going to be a major problem. They may be right. On the other hand they may not. The generally well received Ray, for example, even with a musical legend like Ray Charles at its centre, grossed just $48 million abroad. Dreamgirls doesn't really have anything comparable. Well, it has Beyonce but that's not quite the same thing, and as we already know Dreamgirls will likely cost at least three times as much as Ray.

Once again, what the hell does the international gross have to do with anything? People won't be looking at it's run in China to decide if it deserves to win all the Oscars it'll get nominated for.

Not everyone may think Dreamgirls is the frontrunner for BP this year, but I don't think anyone doubts that it's the frontrunner for Musical/Comedy. It has an EXCELLENT chance at winning Best Picture (Musical/Comedy), Best Actor (Musical/Comedy), etc. thanks to it fitting that small genre. For it to not make profit it'd have to get dissapointing reviews/bad WOM, and I really don't see that happening.

Or it just has to have an all black cast that few outside of black audiences embrace with any real enthusiasm. Look, I'm not trying to drag the film down - I like musicals - I'm just trying to point out it could be a problem.

Once again, with an award show as liberal as the Oscars, having an all black cast is NOT going to hurt. It won't be the reason it does however well as it does, but it sure will help more then hurt.

Financially, it's one of the most sure things of Oscar season.

Maybe, maybe not.

I haven't seen the trailer, all my Dreamgrls info comes for Loyal.

I only watched it once. Once was enough.

Cyn, that is

Dat's coz ze movie sux!

New predictions for Dreamgirls are up at OW

http://www.oscarwatch.com/predictions/