The Academy makes history by including a new category and comes closer to fulfilling the 'John Wick' actor's wish
Keanu Reeves was never nominated for an Oscar . He will be one of the actors most loved by the public and the earthly face of successful franchises like The Matrix or John Wick , but when it comes to artistic recognition, his career never enjoyed academic approval. Theirs have been the commercially inclined awards where the audience's weakness for them is evident, such as the now-defunct Teen Choice Awards, the MTV Movie Awards or People's Choice. However, his relationship with the Academy Awards could be about to change now that his dream is closer to becoming a reality .
For the first time in 23 years, the Academy announced the inclusion of a new category (the last time was in 2001 when they included the recognition for Best Animated Feature). That is, from the 24 awards they currently give out, they will add the statuette for Best Casting starting at the 2026 ceremony for the premieres that arrive in 2025 . Without a doubt, this is an award that the Academy owed to the industry as it is an essential sector of the business: without the casting director, the artistic vision that brings together the perfect candidates for a film to work would not exist. Recognizing the casting process means recognizing that it takes more than a good script and director to make a great production.
That the Academy finally adds a new category opens a range of possibilities, since it exposes the organization's interest in listening to the requests of different business sectors that have been asking for the inclusion of missing categories for decades. Which inevitably puts into the conversation the category that Keanu Reeves has been waiting for for a long time: Best Stunt , the one that would recognize achievements in risk scenes. A facet that he knows very well and that he has been advocating for a long time.
Keanu Reeves' dream
Keanu Reeves expressed his desire that the Oscars finally recognize the stuntmen who put their bodies at risk to achieve heart-stopping sequences. Specialists who dedicate years to physical training, acrobatics and security tactics to entertain the world, with whom he himself has been working for decades since action movies were launched in the '90s.
After all, his perfect choreography in The Matrix or the heart-stopping scenes in John Wick - those that raise the audience's heart rate - have made him a key reference for risk scenes in cinemas.
Without those specialists he would not have left his mark as an action hero in The Matrix nor would he continue to surprise us as he does at 59 years old with a saga as adrenaline-inducing as John Wick. “What does it take for them to do it?” , he asked with some frustration in an IGN interview when asked about the Academy's slowness in including the category. “I guess more people need to say, 'Hey, we need this,'” he exclaimed, encouraging the industry to continue applying pressure.
This desire to recognize the companions who accompany him in his films, prepare him and help him become one of the most popular action heroes of modern cinema, is also shared by the director of John Wick , Chad Stahelski, who precisely began his career as a stunt specialist. They became friends on the filming of The Matrix (1999) and, since then, they have collaborated on several of the actor's films. In turn, the stuntman's skills expanded throughout the industry over thirty years through classics or blockbusters such as The Raven (1994), the Neo trilogy, Van Helsing (2004), Mr. and Mrs. Smith ( 2005), Iron Man 2 (2002), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), The Hunger Games (2012) or Deadpool 2 (2018), among many more.
Stahelski questioned in IGN that there was still no category that recognized the work of stunt specialists, stating that he did not believe there was anyone inside or outside the Academy who believed that this profession was not one of the “nine most important departments.” ”. After all, each action scene needs a specialized coordinator, a double who takes the place of the famous actor when filming a sequence with a minimum of danger or stunts that the performer may not be able to carry out . Even Tom Cruise , an actor known for performing his own action scenes, surrounds himself with these specialists to carry out his cinematic visions as safely as possible.
The prize getting closer
However, even though they are such an essential factor in action cinema, stunt specialists do not enjoy recognition from the Academy… Yet. Because although the fight to achieve this has been circulating for several years, the fact that the Academy has finally expanded its horizon towards the inclusion of another category that had also been requested for a long time, allows us to imagine that they would not be so far away from doing the same soon.
Another indication is that in mid-2023, Chad Stahelski revealed to ComicBookMovie.com that conversations around including them in the Oscars were happening "over the last few months." “We have met with members of the Academy and had conversations that, to be honest, have been incredibly positive […] I think that, for the first time, we have achieved real momentum towards making it happen.”
According to the director, the inclusion of the recognition could occur “in the next Oscars or the next one. At least, in the next three or four years”, while explaining that it should be defined who would receive the award: whether the stuntman who does the scene, the martial arts choreographer, the one for the entire scene or the team in general. For example, the John Wick movies have three fight choreographers. So, which one would win?
For now we have to wait, although the opening of the Oscars to include a new category in almost a quarter of a century raises hopes for the dreamed inclusion of Keanu Reeves. There is even talk of the possibility that finally the recognition for best voice acting will also be included (which many asked for Eddie Murphy for Shrek or Tom Hanks for Toy Story ), for best motion capture (where Andy Serkis is the greatest reference from Gollum and the Planet of the Apes saga ), to title design or musical supervision.
Without a doubt, seeing Keanu Reeves representing a category at the Oscars would be a dream come true for him, his cinematic legacy and his fans. But, above all, it would mean recognizing a section that leaves its mark on the retina of the global viewer. Because probably a large part of the audience does not remember which film won the main statuette three, four or ten years ago, but they do remember the emotions felt with the final battle of Avengers: Endgame , the sequence of Tom Cruise hanging from a plane in the middle of takeoff, the cliff jump in Midsommar or the car chase in Ronin . In the end, risk scenes are part of the magic of cinema.
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