For our fourteenth Rundown article, we take a peek behind the scenes of the green screen. After the jump, you’ll find our winner and runner-up predictions for Best Visual Effects as well as general commentary about the race. Tuesday, we’ll cover two categories with a connection and a third that deals with a face-off. (NOTE: Post updated at 8:02pm to add Tripp’s predictions and commentary.

Best Visual Effects

Winner Predictions

• Deepwater Horizon
• Doctor Strange (PP R) [New]
• The Jungle Book (WL O) (TB O) (TL O)
• Kubo and the Two String
• Rogue One

Runner-Up Predictions

• Deepwater Horizon (TL R) [New]
• Doctor Strange (TB R) [New]
• Kubo and the Two String (WL O)
• Rogue One (PP O)

(color and symbol key at bottom of page)

Wesley Lovell: Everything points to The Jungle Book taking the Oscar thanks to its sweep of the Visual Effect Society award. Of course, the film only has one Oscar nomination. The last time a film won Best Visual Effects on its only nomination was in 1992 when Death Becomes Her became only the third film in Oscar history to win on a single nod (after Innerspace in 1987 and Thunderball in 1965. That is its biggest liability. Of the other nominees in the category, Doctor Strange is the only other lone nominee. What could top Jungle Book? Strange has a shot, but I wonder if Kubo and the Two Strings might stun everyone with a victory since it’s likely to lose Best Animated Feature to Zootopia. Could this be its consolation prize? While there have been many traditional winners in this category, two of the biggest shocks in the category’s history have happened in the last decade. The Golden Compass shocked everyone in 2007 when it won over expected winner Transformers or sequel to prior winner Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. The most recent instance was just last year when Ex Machina toppled both Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant, the two films thought to be competing for the award. It’s still Jungle Book in the lead, but never underestimate the Academy’s ability to think outside the box.
Peter J. Patrick: With so many films relying on visual effects these days, what used to be an easy prediction has become one of the toughest. That said, I think this is between Doctor Strange, Rogue One, and Deepwater Horizon in roughly that order.
Tripp Burton: After last year’s surprise win for Ex Machina, I’m not sure of anything in this category. The Jungle Book, a colossal hit full of impressive effects, seems like a solid winner, though.
Thomas La Tourrette: The Jungle Book had almost total dominance at the Visual Effects Society awards that I expect it to win here as well. At this point it would be hard to picture anything else winning. Aside from the actor who played Mowgli, everything else was created using CGI technology: the animals, the fire, the jungle. For a nominally “live action” film, it was almost totally created by computers. Hopefully this isn’t the future of movies, but it will pave the way for an Oscar win. Deepwater Horizon and Doctor Strange each had wins at the VES, but probably do not have the momentum to triumph here. Deepwater with two wins to Strange’s one probably means it could have the best chance of an upset, but that seems unlikely to happen. The Jungle Book easily wins.

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