Cruz Has Three Films, Eyes Double Oscar Nom — SkimNews
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- Penélope Cruz has three films in play this awards season: a cameo in Netflix's "La Bola Negra" (Cannes best director co-winner, sold in a bidding war), a supporting turn opposite Edward Norton in A24's "The Invite," and a lead role in Florian Zeller's "Bunker" premiering in Venice competition Sept. 8.
- The Academy rewrote an acting rule for the 99th Oscars allowing performers to land two nominations in the same category if both performances finish top five in nominations voting — making Cruz the marquee test case after Variety war-gamed the exact scenario when the rule changed.
- Netflix is giving "La Bola Negra" a 47-day exclusive theatrical window starting Oct. 16 before it streams Dec. 2, the longest exclusive theatrical run in the streamer's history and longer than its "Marriage Story" window, signaling a full best picture campaign rather than a token qualifying run.
- Sony Pictures Classics is mounting a lead actress campaign for Cruz in "Bunker" — Zeller wrote the film for her and Javier Bardem, their eighth together — and is also betting Bardem can land a best actor nod, making it a two-front campaign after "The Father" earned six nominations and two wins.
- The three-distributor split (Sony Pictures Classics, Netflix, A24) creates a trap the new rule also opens: Cruz's support could scatter across two films and miss the top-five cutoff entirely, where concentrating on one performance would have guaranteed a seat.
- Cruz won her first Oscar in 2008 for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" as the first Spanish actress to win an acting Oscar; a second win in supporting actress would put her alongside Dianne Wiest and Shelley Winters as the only women with multiple supporting actress Oscars.
Why it matters: Cruz's path to a second Oscar is a vote-splitting gamble unique to the new rule: concentrate support on Sony Pictures Classics' "Bunker" for a safe lead-actress seat, or let all three distributors run their campaigns and risk her votes scattering below the top-five cutoff the double-nomination rule requires.
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