Undoubtedly feeling confident after the Oscars showed Black Panther so much love last year, Disney is going all out with their nominations this year. Not only are they targeting Best Picture and a number of technical awards for Avengers: Endgame, but they are throwing everyone into the mix to get an acting nomination. Basically, if you were an Avenger, you've been called to assemble.
Disney has submitted 13 names for Best Supporting Actor/Actress nominations for the Academy Awards. What's interesting is they didn't put anybody up for Best Actor, I guess sticking with the ensemble spirit of the movie. So you have Robert Downey Jr. listed in the Best Supporting Actor field, although if there were one actor you could say deserved Best Actor, it'd be him. Now, Downey has already said he wants no part of this Oscar stuff, but Disney is going to put him out there, anyway.
So on the list are Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Josh Brolin, Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd, Don Cheadle, Zoe Saldana, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Scarlett Johansson, and Gwyneth Paltrow. I think you could've made the case for Evans being Best Actor, maybe even ScarJo for Best Actress, but Disney is clearly putting everyone up as equals which makes total sense. Endgame's record-breaking success wasn't due to any one actor, just as the Avengers are all meant to be on equal footing. I'm just surprised they didn't make it 14 and include Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket. He never would've been considered, but Rocket was as big if not a bigger part than some of the characters that Disney did put up.
The likelihood is nobody in this list is going to get nominated, and I don't know big of a true Oscar campaign Disney is going to run for them. Probably not much. I think they'll throw all of their energy into the Best Picture race, though, as the perfect capper to Endgame becoming the highest-grossing movie of all-time.
