On Sunday night, Colin Farrell won the Golden Globe for Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for playing a DC Comics villain, the Penguin, in Max’s The Penguin.
And finally, is there any quicker path to award-season glory than taking a DC villain super seriously? At this present time, no.
Farrell has joined a small-but-notable group of actors who have picked up statues for their work in comic book movies. Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker in the 2008 Christopher Nolan film The Dark Knight broke the dam, in a way, lending prestige to what had up until that point been seen as the big-paycheck gig of playing dress-up in studio blockbusters. Ledger posthumously picked up both the Golden Globe and the Oscar for his work in the film. Eleven years later, Joaquin Phoenix would pull off the same one-two awards punch for his work as “The Joker” in Joker. (Phoenix does not appear to be back in the Oscar conversation for 2024’s Joker: Folie à Deux — quite the opposite!)
As Oscar prognosticators have noted over the years, DC’s wins opened the door for the four-quadrant Marvel business to enter the awards conversation. Black Panther finally netted the studio a Best Picture nomination in 2019 (and a win for costume designer Ruth E. Carter), while Angela Bassett scored Marvel’s first acting nom, in Supporting Actress, for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. That is as close as the studio has come to awards glory, and based on the current epic-crossover plans, maybe the closest it will get for the foreseeable future. It’s a lot easier to let Robert Downey Jr. go win his Oscar for a Nolan movie than to fund an awards campaign for Doctor Doom.
In terms of cinematic success, Marvel and DC seem leagues apart. The MCU remains on the single-continuity path first treaded by producer Kevin Feige in 2008’s Iron Man, while the DC strategy has seen one universe wind down (so long, Snyderverse), another pop up in its place (hello, Gunniverse), and scattered one-offs succeed (good on you… Reevesverse?). The Marvel business is cohesive — maybe to a fault? — and it’s clear that DC is chasing that success.
But DC’s James Gunn has said he wants the studio to be nimble enough to veer in a multitude of directions. There will be movies in continuity, first with his Superman this summer, and “Elseworlds” projects like The Batman and the Joker films. The hope is that filmmakers can tell exciting, dramatic stories within the confines of DC — but without a house style or demand of the continuity. In that way, he’s following what has actually worked for DC in the past, and netted it awards to boot.
Who will continue to prove the theory that DC villains have the awards juice? Gene Hackman earned a BAFTA for playing his clown version of Lex Luthor in the 1978 Superman, so there’s plenty of reason to think Nosferatu’s Nicholas Hoult could rage his way to critical praise as Gunn’s version of the character. Though Paul Dano’s Riddler was snubbed for The Batman, the recently delayed The Batman Part II could offer a new actor the type of meaty part that crosses over at the Oscars. Or maybe Mike Flanagan’s just-announced horror-tinged Clayface movie is the ticket — traditionally, the goopy villain is a griping B-list actor out for vengeance. The Academy loves a movie about the movies.
The Globe is not the final award Farrell could win for playing the Penguin; the show is eligible for this year’s Emmys, where the actor could win yet again and remind people that Marvel money isn’t everything.
