Stunt coordinators are pushing the Academy for an Oscar category.
Mad Max: Fury Road earned 10 Oscar nominations this year, including one for best pictures. However, the stunt coordinators who brought the movie to life did not get a single nomination. Why? Because The Academy does not award movies for stunts.
And apparently, the stunt community is not too happy about it. In fact, they will be protesting in front of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this week in Beverly Hills.
Protestors also started an online petition, signed by over 45,000, petitioning Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs for a new award category.
“For almost 90 years, the Film Academy has blatantly discriminated against stunt people and their contribution to the medium we all love and literally bleed for. There are no color lines or gender lines here. Stuntwomen and stuntmen of all walks are affected by the disregard of their significant contribution to the films we watch,” Emmy-winning stunt coordinator Jeff Wolfe, president of the Stuntmen’s Association of Motion Pictures, said in a statement. “After all, what would most movies be without the action?”
This is not the first time. In 2011, the Academy considered the request and turned it down and the stunt community tried again in 2012 and that clearly didn’t work.
Meanwhile, the SAG Awards added stunt ensemble awards in 2008 for film and TV and this year’s winners were Mad Max: Fury Road and Game of Thrones.
“From the initial stages of designing sequences, rehearsing the action, and filming the finished product that becomes the iconic movie, the action movie would not exist without the vision of a stunt coordinator,” said Jack Gill, rally organizer and veteran stunt coordinator (Fast 5, Furious 7and the upcoming Fast 8). “After 25 years of fighting for this cause, it’s time for the Academy to step up to the 21st century and create an Oscar category for the stunt coordinators who contribute such a large part to the filmmaking process.”
