The annual Academy Awards took place in Hollywood last night and, as was largely expected, it was a disappointing evening for Harry Potter. Despite ten years of cinematic brilliance and an acclaimed final film, it was only nominated in three technical categories and failed to win in any of them.
Hugo, a film by Martin Scorsese (who is a favourite of the Academy), was the night’s biggest winner along with The Artist, and it beat out Harry Potter to take home the Art Direction and Visual Effects awards. And The Iron Lady won ahead of Deathly Hallows Part 2 in the Makeup category for their work in making Meryl Streep look like Margaret Thatcher. (View a complete list of winners here)
That means that after eight films, the Harry Potter series has and now never will win a single Oscar. According to Eonline, that makes it the most snubbed series of all time.
But did they honour the series with a special tribute or contribution award like the Baftas did last year? Nope, they did not. In fact the series only very briefly got a mention in a joke about taxes.
We think it is a great shame that for whatever strange reason, Harry Potter has been completely ignored by The Academy, the most prestigious of awards shows and the one which the whole world listens to. But we can be pretty sure that this won’t affect Harry’s place in cinematic history. Star Wars, for example, only ever received a handful of Oscar statues, and yet to this day is a huge phenomenon looked backed on as one the greatest movie series ever produced. Harry Potter will certainly leave a similar, perhaps even greater legacy, while the big winners here will be mostly forgotten.
