There's a new potential Oscar contender in the mix, and it's a film we've long expected to be a Netflix series. In a major surprise, the Coen Brohers' anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs was announced as part of the stacked Venice Film Festival lineup. Somewhere along the way the project has morphed into a movie to arrive this fall.
So last year the project was revealed to be a six-part anthology Western, starring Tim Blake Nelson as the titular Buster Scruggs. Each installment would be connected to him in some way, led by stars Zoe Kazan, Tom Waits, and Liam Neeson. So what changed? The Coens tell Variety...
“We’ve always loved anthology movies, especially those films made in Italy in the Sixties which set side-by-side the work of different directors on a common theme. Having written an anthology of Western stories we attempted to do the same, hoping to enlist the best directors working today. It was our great fortune that they both agreed to participate.”
Basically, Netflix sees potential for an Oscar contender. So they're even giving it a small theatrical run to qualify. We'll see if they do a better job pushing this than they have other supposed contenders.
