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News February 18, 2018

Prediction for Oscar win heats up for ‘The Greatest Showman’ song

Prediction for Oscar win heats up for ‘The Greatest Showman’ song

In the run-up to the March 4 Oscars, predictions are heating up that ‘This Is Me’ from the The Greatest Showman soundtrack will walk off with the Oscar for Best Original Song.

‘This Is Me’ had always been a leading contender, along with ‘Remember Me’— from Coco about a song triggering off a positive result for someone who’s lost their memory – since nominations were announced last month.

But in recent weeks, the possible tipping point is that both the biopic musical movie and the soundtrack have started to move in the United States after an initial slow start.

This was because the movie starring Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum, the 19th century circus entrepreneur/ huckster, got lukewarm reviews. Not helping was that it was up against, and trumped by, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Jumanji:

In its first three days, the $84 million movie took a hardly-memorable $8.8 million – and 20th Century Fox figured it had a dead duck on its hand.

But audiences loved it, and spread its virtues through social media and word of mouth.

Within weeks, grosses had doubled, and its tenth week sawit gross $146 million in America and $314 million globally.

The soundtrack took off too, entering the pop charts at #66 and then peaking at #1 and sold 500,000 units.

Last week it was holding on at #2, and sold an extra 95,000.

It went on to top half a dozen charts (including Australia (where this week it clocked up its seventh consecutive week at the top of the ARIA chart, while sing-a-long audience sessions intensified the buzz about the movie and its music.

The single ‘This Is Me’, sung by Keala Settle, not only was reignited as well but won a Golden Globe.

Hence the song’s chances at the Oscars have intensified.

But it must be remembered that Oscars voters go for social comment and poignancy, and the Best Song category is abound with inclusion and diversity.

This Is Me’, written by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul who won in 2016 for La La Land is an anthem for people who felt they were freaks and outcasts all their lives.

‘Remember Me’ from Coco was by the wife and husband team of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Bobby Lopez who won an Oscar for 2013’s Frozen.

Coco is a feel-good movie about how a song written by her dead father allows an old woman to regain her speaking and recognising skills.

‘Stand Up for Something” by Diane Warren and Lonnie Lynn is from Marshall, about the young African American legal activist Thurgood Marshall who became the first black justice on the Supreme Court, and based around one of his first cases defending a black chauffeur accused of rape by his white employer.

Sufjan Stevens wrote ‘Mystery Of Love’ for Call Me by Your Name, a coming-of-age drama of a 17 year old boy in 1980s Italy who enjoys a fleeting romance with a graduate student who spends the summer with his family to get tuition from his archaeology, professor father.

‘Mighty River’, sung and co-written by hip hop/R&B singer Mary J. Blige is from Mudbound, about two World War II war veterans, one black and the other white, who return to rural Mississippi and address racism and PTSD in his own way.

There’s a strong Oscar vibe for Blige’s nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her outstanding portrayal as Florence, which might spill over to the song.

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