Kevin Smith is outraged by Spider-Man: No Way Home being snubbed for Best Picture by the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences ahead of the 94th Academy Awards.
"What the fuck?" the Clerks creator said on a recent episode of his FatMan Beyond podcast. "They got 10 slots, they can't give one to the biggest fucking movie of like the last three years?" No Way Home was only nominated for one Academy Award in the category for Best Visual Effects.
"Man, and they're like, 'Why won't anyone watch this show?' Like fucking make a populist choice, fuck, man," Smith continued. "You got how many slots? Throw in Spider-Man for god's sakes. Let him swing in there. Fucking poor kid's always getting crapped on and shit, show Peter Parker some fucking love. I'm not even being facetious, with as many movies as they have nominated for best picture…"
Smith's thoughts on Spider-Man: No Way Home mirrors those of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel who addressed the "unforgivable" snub during a recent monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live! "How did that not get one of the 10 nominations for Best Picture?" Kimmel said. "There were only 11 movies made this year. Forget the fact that the movie made $750 million and is still going. This was a great movie. It wasn't in the top 10 best movies of the year? There were three Spider-Men in it!"
Following its official release in theaters, the long-awaited Spider-Man threequel has consistently broken established box-office records and is a hit with both critics and audiences alike as the first pandemic-era film to cross $1 billion globally. In December 2021, star Tom Holland, as well as the heads at Marvel Studios and Sony Entertainment pushed for No Way Home to receive a Best Picture nod at the upcoming Academy Awards.
"This is a big picture on the big screen at a moment when the big screen experience is fighting for its life. This is a chance for the Academy to strike a blow for the big screen," said Tom Rothman, the current chairman of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group. "This is why they expanded the best picture category to 10 films, for exactly this circumstance."
No Way Home marked the Marvel Cinematic Universe's third solo Spider-Man film, breaking the multiverse open with the return of villains from previous franchises. These villains included Alfred Molina, Willem Dafoe and Thomas Hayden Church from the original Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy, as well as Jamie Foxx and Rhys Ifans from Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man films. No Way Home also saw Holland's Web-Slinger be joined by Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire's respective Spider-Mans as well.
Source: FatMan Beyond, via Variety