Gold Standard: Searchlight’s grand challenge: ‘Budapest Hotel’ for best picture

We’ve been deluged with dozens of variations of “Birdman Soars” headlines in the last couple of days, as Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s ambitious tale of a onetime comic book movie star’s quest for reinvention opened to great business last weekend, grossing $415,000 in just four theaters.

It’s a fantastic take, second only this year to Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” which debuted in March to the tune of $811,000 in four theaters. The critically acclaimed film went on to become the biggest hit in Anderson’s storied career, taking in $172 million worldwide, including $59 million in the United States.

So why aren’t people still talking about “Budapest” as a certified best picture contender? Pundits at the awards prediction site Gold Derby currently have the movie -- a nostalgic recounting of a droll concierge’s (Ralph Fiennes) many adventures -- tied for 10th place with Clint Eastwood’s unseen “American Sniper” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s shaggy dog detective story, “Inherent Vice.”

Movie City News’ Gurus o’ Gold poll puts “Budapest” at No. 9, which would just sneak it in if voters nominate nine movies as they have done annually since the motion picture academy revised its voting process three years ago.

The doubt about “Budapest’s” Oscar chances can be boiled down to two issues -- timing and past performance. The movie arrived in theaters on March 7 and came out on home video in June. That’s an eternity for academy members now facing a daily barrage of screening invites and DVDs arriving in the mail.

Since the February 1991 release “The Silence of the Lambs” won best picture, the academy has nominated just three movies that debuted earlier than May -- “Howards End” (March 1992), “Fargo” (March 1996) and “Erin Brockovich” (March 2000). There have been a handful of May releases since “Brockovich” -- most recently, Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” and Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris,” two movies that enjoyed long theatrical runs. But as a general rule, Ella Fitzgerald put it best: Spring can really hang these people up the most.

Then there’s the fact that the academy has never nominated a Wes Anderson movie for best picture. Not “Rushmore.” Not “The Royal Tenenbaums.” Not “Moonrise Kingdom,” Anderson’s extraordinarily tender 2012 love story that many thought might end the drought. Anderson himself has received three nominations -- two for original screenplay (“Moonrise” and “Tenenbaums”) and one as a producer of “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” nominated for animated feature in 2009. But the picture honor continues to elude him, as does recognition from the directors branch.

The press-shy Anderson is currently at his home in Paris, working on his next project, details of which he’s keeping vague, as always. “It’s very complicated,” he told the Playlist in March. “I’m not even sure if it even is a movie.” He’ll be doing interviews in the coming weeks, but only over the phone or via Skype. As yet, there are no plans for him to travel to New York and Los Angeles to glad-hand voters and remind them how much they liked his movie.

That job then falls to the film’s distributor, Fox Searchlight. Studio executives say they intend to mount a full campaign for the movie and have been screening it extensively for academy members and guilds. A recent New York Screen Actors Guild nominating committee event with actors Fiennes, Edward Norton and Jeff Goldblum went well, and Goldblum visited the Fox lot over the weekend for a post-screening Q&A.

The linchpin to “Budapest’s” best picture campaign lies with the Golden Globes. The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. splits its film award categories between dramas and musicals/comedies, giving movies like “Budapest” an easier path toward a nomination. “Moonrise Kingdom” won a nod for best motion picture -- musical or comedy. “Budapest” likely will too, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Fiennes land in the lead actor category, further boosting the film’s profile.

It’d be a start. But would that be enough to push it through an academy membership that appears immune to Anderson’s wry, melancholy humor, his intricately crafted worlds and his penchant for tracking shots and all things symmetrical?

Awards pundit Sasha Stone, among many others, doesn’t have “Budapest” on her best picture predictions list at the moment, though she’s open to the possibility. What would change her mind? “A SAG ensemble nod could go a long way toward getting it in there,” she says.

Short of that, it might be a dire situation. Perhaps Searchlight could put in a call to these guys for help?

Twitter: @glennwhipp