The 94th annual Academy Awards took place on Sunday night, and many things of note happened, including but not limited to CODA becoming the first ever movie to win Best Picture that was released by a streaming service, and a, shall we say, altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock. But for horror fans, it meant that Army of the Dead made a somewhat unlikely appearance during the telecast, becoming the winner of the first-ever Oscars Fan Favorite poll.
The Academy had been looking for ways to get viewers to pay attention this year and hatched a couple of social media-based initiatives to do just that. The idea behind the Oscars Fan Favorite poll, which was voted on by using the hashtag #OscarsFanFavorite on Twitter, was to give an award to a popular film, which might encourage a wider variety of viewers to tune in. No doubt, the hope was that a crowd-pleaser like Spider-Man: No Way Home would take the cake, but that’s not how the internet works.
Instead, director Zack Snyder fans rallied behind his Netflix zombie flick, and it came out on top, as was announced during the ceremony. While this doesn’t mean that Army of the Dead gets an actual Oscar, it does mean that a big genre film got a little moment in the spotlight during Hollywood’s biggest night. Amazingly enough, James Wan’s Malignant was also among those in the running for the prize, but that bridge proved to be just a bit too far to actually cross.
The other movies that finished in the top five for fan voting were Amazon’s Cinderella, Johnny Depp’s Minamata, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Tick, Tick…Boom! The fact that a Johnny Depp movie that seemingly hardly anyone has seen and a critically-panned take on Cinderella also finished in the top five shows how skewed this whole thing was by the internet. This was not exactly flawless for the people, by the people stuff, and it resulted in a little bit of egg on the Academy’s face. To that end, Zack Snyder’s Justice League also won the “Cheer-Worthy Moment” award for The Flash entering the Speed Force, topping the likes of Neo dodging bullets in The Matrix and the “Avengers assemble” moment from Avengers: Endgame.
As for Army of the Dead, the heist flick hiding inside a gigantic zombie movie was released on Netflix last year and performed exceptionally well on the streaming service. A prequel movie, Army of Thieves, was also released last year, with a sequel, Planet of the Dead, currently in the works. Netflix also has an anime series coming down the pipeline, turning this into a full-fledged franchise. The movie stars Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana De La Reguera, Samantha Win, Colin Jones, Matthias Schweighöfer, Tig Notaro and Raúl Castillo.
Army of the Dead is streaming now on Netflix.
