Wicked: For Good will battle for top comedy-musical honours with One Battle After Another and Marty Supreme.
Also in the comedy mix is apocalyptic satire Bugonia, the latest quirky effort from Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos, featuring his frequent collaborator Emma Stone, who is tipped for a nomination with co-star Jesse Plemons.
For Davis, Wicked – the blockbuster conclusion of the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical – is “still probably the populist choice” with wide appeal.
Ariana Grande, as the bubbly pink-clad Glinda, and Tony winner Cynthia Erivo, as the green-skinned Elphaba, are awards hopefuls again this year, even though Erivo was surprisingly cut from the Critics Choice Awards short list.
For Davis, the best actress category for the Globes, and looking forward to the Oscars, will be a “Murderers’ Row,” with a glut of worthy candidates.
Each main category will have six nominees, not five as in past years.
‘Hamnet’ and ‘Sinners’ lead dramas
On the drama side, the top contenders all delve into the past.
Hamnet, from Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao, stars Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare, who tries to forge a career as a playwright while his wife Agnes – played by Jessie Buckley – contends with the perils of plague and childbirth in Elizabethan England.
The film, based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell, draws on evidence that the couple had a son named Hamnet – a name that scholars say would have sounded indistinguishable from “Hamlet” at the time.
Sinners, from Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, stars Michael B. Jordan as twins in the criminal underworld who encounter a sinister force as they return home to racially segregated Mississippi in the 1930s.
The film was a runaway box office success, and Jordan seems sure to secure a nomination. It led the nods for the Critics Choice Awards on Friday with 17.
“It has so much going for it – it’s a big moneymaker, it was a culturally significant hit,” explained Davis, who added he “will not sleep a wink” until Coogler gets an Oscar nomination for directing.
Also in the running is Guillermo Del Toro’s adaptation of Frankenstein, starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi.
Oscar nominations are due on January 22, so the picks for the Globes should begin to more clearly sketch out the road to the Academy Awards.
The Globes also honour the best in television, with the top Emmy nominees – Severance and The Pitt for the dramas, The Studio and Hacks for the comedies, and searing limited series Adolescence – expected to dominate the nominations.
Actors Marlon Wayans and Skye Marshall will announce the main nominees for the 83rd Golden Globes from 2.15am Tuesday NZT.
The Globes are in year three of a revamp, and last year’s gala hosted by comedian Nikki Glaser was a hit with audiences, with more than 10 million tuning in.
Glaser will return as host of the January 11 gala in Beverly Hills.
- Agence France-Presse
