Tuorhoth’s first predictions for the 2014 Academy Awards

October and November are seeing the releases of some of the huge contenders for the Oscars next year well before award season has begun. We’ve no idea how well any of these films are going to do critically seeing as none of them have actually been released to mainstream audiences. This isn’t an award by award breakdown but we’re giving you a brief guide as to what could be nominated in “the big six” awards at world’s biggest annual movie event. I’m also ranking the potential nominees by their likelihood of winning by colour: red means most likely to win, blue means second most likely and green means I’ve ranked them third.

Best Supporting Actress

Cate Blanchett – The Monuments Men

Cameron Diaz – The Counsellor

Julianne Moore – Carrie

Michelle Pfeiffer – The Family

Kristen Wiig – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Best Supporting Actor

Barkhad Abdi – Captain Phillips

Benedict Cumberbatch – 12 Years A Slave

Jean Dujardin – The Monuments Men

Jonah Hill – The Wolf of Wall Street

Tommy Lee Jones – The Family

Best Leading Actress

Sandra Bullock – Gravity

Nicole Kidman – Grace of Monaco

Jennifer Lawrence – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Chloe Grace Moretz – Carrie

Emma Thompson – Saving Mr. Banks

Best Leading Actor

George Clooney – Gravity

Steve Coogan – Philomena

Leonardo di Caprio – The Wolf of Wall Street

Tom Hanks – Captain Phillips or Saving Mr. Banks (undecided)

Ben Stiller – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Best Director

Alfonso Cauron – Gravity

George Clooney – The Monuments Men

Paul Greengrass – Captain Phillips

Martin Scorsese – The Wolf of Wall Street

Ben Stiller – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Best Picture

12 Years A Slave

American Hustle

Captain Phillips

The Counsellor

Gravity

The Monuments Men

Out of the Furnace

Saving Mr. Banks

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The Wolf of Wall Street

So, these are my beginning of season suggestions for who will be nominated at this prestigious event. We’re now going to talk through those films and actors that I haven’t included but could be major contenders. There’s a huge cast for The Monuments Men which I haven’t fully gone over. I’ve put George Clooney, who I’ve already selected for Best Director for this film, in for Best Leading Actor for Gravity not The MM but he could easily win for both. Stars of The Monuments Men like Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Hugh Bonneville and Bob Balaban could squeeze into the supporting actor position that I placed Dujardin in. Dujardin is already popular with the academy after his Lead Actor win in 2012 for The Artist and as likely could get a nomination for The Wolf of Wall Street instead of The Monuments Men.

Wolf of Wall Street could do very well. Jonah Hill may seem like a surprise nominee but remember that he got similar recognition at the 2012 Oscars for Moneyball. I’ve only put Nicole Kidman forward for this film but Grace of Monaco is a noteworthy contender for a Best Pic nomination. American Hustle is only in one award on my list but the stellar cast of Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence (whose already in for Hunger Games 2), Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale. I think it will win Best Original Screenplay however.

Other potential nominees are the aforementioned Bale for Out of the Furnace, for which Casey Affleck and Zoe Saldana could also be in contention. Dame Judi Dench could get into the actress categories for Philomena. Robert De Niro stars in both American Hustle and The Family and could crack into the shortlists. Colin Farrel and Paul Giamatti came close to my lists for Saving Mr. Banks. 12 Years A Slave could through in Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano and Quvenzhane Wallis back into the award scene while The Counsellor could do the same for Fassbender, Pitt, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem as well as it’s director Sir Ridley Scott. We can’t rule out other entries like All is Lost with Robert Redford, The Book Thief with Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson or Inside Llewyn Davis (the Coen brothers’ folk tale with Oscar Isaac, Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan). Spike Lee’s mysterious action remake Oldboy could creep in with it’s stars Josh Brolin, Samuel L Jackson, Elizabeth Olsen, Hannah Simone and Sharlto Copley.

It’s not too late to remove this year’s earlier hits like The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann directing Leonardo di Caprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan and Joel Edgerton), Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen directing Cate Blanchett and Alec Baldwin), Prisoners (Hugh Jackman, Paul Dano, Viola Davis, Melissa Leo, Terrence Howard and Jake Gyllenhaal in the directing of Denis Villeneuve) and Rush (Ron Howard’s biopic with Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl). Blockbuster action films like the upcoming The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Ender’s Game or 47 Ronin have been known to do well as the Oscars (see The Dark Knight, Inception and a few others) and there’s usually a surprise foreign language film in the mix (like Amour). There’s a whole variety of films that could be next year’s nominees but I think the leaders are: Gravity, Captain Phillips, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Monuments Men and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Find out more about these films at our Future Films pages for 2013 and 2014.

The 86th Academy Awards will be hosted by Ellen De Generes and will be on ABC on March 2nd 2014

Tell us in the comments who YOU think will win big at the 2014 Oscars.

Affleck talks Batman and Insidious will get third Chapter

Insidious’ 2011 release brought it a remarkable $97 million gross of director James Wan’s (Saw, The Conjuring) limited $1.5 million budget. Wan then directed this year’s biggest horror hit The Conjuring ($270 million from a $20 million budget). Indsidious’ new second instalment had an increased budget of $5 million and is now much more likely to trample over both the first film’s, and possibly The Conjuring’s, respective worldwide grossings.

After Insidious: Chapter 2 gained $41 million on it’s opening weekend, a third film in the series is now on the cards. James Wan is busy off directing Fast and Furious 7 (which has now cast Lucas Black alongside Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham and Paul Walker) but you can bet he’ll be on for creating the story and producing the film. All we do know is that the previous two film’s Leigh Whannell is writing the screenplay.

Ben Affleck has finally made a statement about his new role as Bruce Wayne/Batman/The Dark Knight/Batfleck. His casting caused internet wide controversy, despite his Oscar and BAFTA wins from earlier this year for Argo, as they recalled Affleck flops such as Daredevil but he’s now trying to win back the fans. He does make references to other actors who where hated for taking a certain role and then loved for it after the film’s release. Before you judge Affleck remember that everyone wanted Crispin Glover (Back to the Future) instead of Heath Ledger for the role of The Joker but he later won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Dark Knight. Angry fans set up a website called craignotbond.com when Daniel Craig was cast as 007 for Casino Royale but he’s perhaps one of the most loved Bonds of all time and brought the action to new heights in terms of box-office, awards and reviews with last year’s thriller hit Skyfall. craignotbond.com is no longer in action!

“It’s so awesome, man. I’m so excited. They called me up and asked me if I wanted to do this. And I said, ‘I’m not 25, man, are you sure about this?’ And they said, ‘Come down, we want to show you what we’re doing.’ Zack Snyder’s directing it and he has this amazing take on it. Obviously you can’t do what Christian Bale did, those movies were amazing. But Zack wants to something different but still in keeping with that.”

“I thought this was a brilliant way to do this. I know how to hook into this. And I said, ‘Okay, I wanna do this.’ The people from the studio were like, ‘We’re thrilled, we’re so excited…’ and they arranged it. They said, ‘Listen, people go through this process and it can be trying. We want to show you some of the reactions that previous people who’ve been cast received on the internet.’ So they send me examples of people who were in these movies and did a great job. These things were like, ‘Kill him!’ And he was amazing! You can’t say anything before the movie comes out. It doesn’t matter what you think then, it matters what you think after the movie comes out.”

“But I thought, ‘I’m a big boy. I can handle any snub. I can handle anything.’ They said don’t use the internet for a few days, but I handle it. So I looked at the first comment and it says ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’ Part of it is when you see the material, when you see the takes, it’s hard to describe without giving away the story, what it is. But I feel like I have a lot of opportunities now, and this is something that’s really exciting.”

Ben Affleck will next be seen alongside Justin Timberlake and Gemma Arteton in gambling thriller Runner Runner before Batman vs. Superman in 2015.

Insidious: Chapter 2 is out now

Insidious: Chapter 3 could be out Halloween 2015

Fast and Furious 7 is out July 25th 2014

Runner Runner is out September 27th

Batman vs. Superman is out July 17th 2015