CinemaCon Puts Elvis, Tom Cruise, And Harvey Weinstein Up For Oscars – Deadline

After spending the entire week trapped in the bowels of a smoke-filled, maskless, jam-packed Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for CinemaCon, and after sitting through the various studio presentations in search of possible clues to what might be in play for the 95th annual Academy Awards, I can say two of the names we are very likely to hear about might be two of the most unexpected: Tom Cruise and Harvey Weinstein. I am not hallucinating. I will get to both in a second, but first I have to say Oscar pundits don’t really travel to this annual exhibitors convention with any realistic expectations of seeing major awards contenders.

No, this is more to excite those theater owners and managers who crowd the Colosseum to see the likes of Dwayne Johnson or Keanu Reeves tout their next sequels and/or Marvel movies. The collective takeaway after four days of this thing is more, more, more of the “IP” (a favored phrase at CinemaCon) that serves as comfort food for theaters, and that includes more John Wick, more Jurassic World, more Aquaman, more Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Thor, Black Panther, Fast & Furious and especially way, way more of Avatar, with four sequels and the first one ready to go in December as the short but impressive teaser drew excitement from the collected crowd.

CinemaCon 2022: Deadline’s Full Coverage

But potential Oscar discoveries? Well, not as easy to detect, but based on names involved and their own Academy history, we can offer a brief rundown.

So let’s start with Paramount and Top Gun: Maverick. The studio, after five release-date changes due to Covid, finally unveiled the whole thing Thursday. and it was a triumph, a 36 years-in-the-making sequel to a superstar-creating original for Cruise that not only is a Top Gun that tops the first one but does so in every way and proves to be perfection as an example of the lost art of what makes a big-scale Hollywood movie. In other words, exactly the kind of movie Oscar never will take seriously but should. I said the same thing about last year’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, but it was relegated to a single nomination for Visual Effects, and certainly was, like this one, the kind of movie that must be seen in the biggest screen around with a packed audience.

With Oscar voters increasingly used to their digital screening room and home viewing, hope for getting them to celebrate an example of blockbuster perfection like Top Gun: Maverick is probably a lost cause, but I say to Oscar voters: “Get over yourselves and open your eyes and heart to what this industry has always been about. The CinemaCon crowd was electrified by this, certainly ticket buyers will be, and you should be to.” This is no easy achievement, and though Cruise has been nominated for more Oscar-baity performances than his second time around as Maverick, I would say this is a true movie-star performance for the ages, perhaps his best yet. And one studio insider told me he…