Franchise fever continues to dominate the Saturn Awards

By Nathaniel R

BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE © Warner Bros

The 52nd annual Saturn Awards are taking place this year on February 2nd and voting is happening right now (until the 15th). Dune Part Two (14 nominations) and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (13 noms) are in the lead this time around while Deadpool & Wolverine is lagging a bit behind in third with 10 noms. Those aren't the only franchises in play and we'll discuss how long some of these franchises that are up for prizes have been running (once since the 1950s!)...

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The Saturn Awards will also celebrate the year of "Barbenheimer"

by Nathaniel R

The 51st Annual Saturn Awards will take place on February 4th this year in Los Angeles. Universal has reason to celebrate as the nomination leader with films like Oppenheimer, Renfield, and M3GAN in the mix. While Paramount is not far behind with titles like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Dungeons and Dragons. The Saturn awards have been honoring genre film and television for decades and they once had that all to themselves but in the 21st century mainstream awards bodies like the Oscars and the Emmys aren't as afraid of genre entertainment as they once were so a few of the honorees each year are also awards player in the more mainstream ceremonies.

The Saturn Awards don't run with a full calendar year so there's always a mix of last year's titles and this year's. Avatar The Way of Water, released in 2022, is the nomination leader this time with 12 citations (a record) while 2023's atypical summer blockbuster Oppenheimer is just behind with 11 nods. Given its zeitgeist appeal, Barbie also competes in a few categories..

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'Everything Everywhere All At Once' triumphs at the Saturn Awards in a strong year for Asian talent

by Nathaniel R

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE won four prizes at the Saturn Awards

The 47th annual Saturn Awards, which are actually their 50th anniversary (it's confusing but mostly blame the pandemic) were held Tuesday night. Their calendar of eligibility runs summer to summer and they honor genre films and genre tv though they fudge a bit in some categories (kicking sci-fi fantasy and horror to the curb every once in a while for a drama or comedy or even musical they love). Though The Batman (2022) and Nightmare Alley (2021) led the nominations and both won a couple things, the night's big winner was A24's leggy hit and Oscar hopeful Everything Everywhere All At Once which took four prizes: Fantasy Feature, Lead Actress, Supporting Actor, and 4K Special Edition Release. On the TV side of the equation Better Call Saul was the top series with four prizes (three of which were for its actors)

It was a landmark year for Asian films and performers in general with RRR nabbing International Film (the fifth consecutive Asian film to win this prize after The Handmaiden, Baahubali 2, Burning, and Parasite), EEAAO's overall dominance, and six of the acting prizes going to actors of Asian descent (Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Ming-Na Wen, Awkwafina, Iman Vellani, and Jennifer Tilly). The list of winners and a few comments after the jump...

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"The Batman" leads the 2022 Saturn Award Nominations

by Nathaniel R

Nominations have been announced for the 50th annual Saturn Awards, which honor genre films and television. This year's nomination leader is The Batman (2022) though Nightmare Alley (2021) also showed up in a lot of places. While the Saturns have often made questionable choices in the past their expanded nominee lists these days -- divvying things up into even more subdivisions and then giving each category six or seven nomines prevent us from really having much to say about them since they nominate everything now, case in point the first category after the jump... 

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Saturn Nominations 2019: Endgame

by Nathaniel R

Avengers Endgame dominated with 14 nominations

The Saturn Awards, which used to be held in June each year are moving to September which means the nominations have been delayed for some time now and the eligibility period for the 2019 nominations covers a 16 month period from March 1st, 2018 through to July 7th, 2019. Moving forward, the eligibility should revert to a July to June basis with the ceremony in September (September 13th this year). They're also soon announcing a streaming partner so it will become a televised ceremony starting this year.

We love the Saturn Awards in concept -- it's a worthy goal to honor genre films (fantasy, horror, action, thrillers, and sci-fi are the pet causes) because any genre is capable of greatness -- but they've never quite been able to get their act together and each year's nominations are always agonizing or inexplicable in some way or another...

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