Scott Feinberg‘s 2.15 Hollywood Reporter essay about what went wrong with the awards campaign for A Star Is Born is deftly, in some ways cautiously phrased. He doesn’t even mention the overbearing, way-too-early celebrity endorsements (Sean Penn, Robert DeNiro, et. al.), and he’s somewhat oblique in the matter of Variety‘s Kris Tapley (“Others, just as problematically, reacted to ASIB‘s first screenings with predictions of historic Oscar success — which, shortly thereafter, made its loss of Toronto’s audience award to Green Book feel like a major disappointment”). But Jonathan Allardyce‘s illustration is perfect. I’d pay good money to see Tapley or Penn added.
Hollywood Reporter illustration by Jonathan Allardyce. But he didn’t go far enough!