Oscars to Honor ‘Best Casting’ Before Adding ‘Best Stunt’ Category

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) announced this month that it would be adding the new category of Best Casting to the Academy Award ceremony while leaving the much-desired Best Stunt with no category to speak of despite its inarguable contribution to cinema since the artform’s inception.

The new category will honor Casting Directors, a branch of the Academy that was formed in 2013 and has since garnered 160 members.

“Casting directors play an essential role in filmmaking, and as the Academy evolves, we are proud to add casting to the disciplines that we recognize and celebrate,” said Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang. “We congratulate our Casting Directors Branch members on this exciting milestone and their commitment and diligence throughout this process.”

According to Variety, “The fight for the recognition of casting directors dates back to the late 1990s, when there was a fervent push to add it to the ceremony. However, it did not have widespread support back then and did not come to fruition.”

This year’s Oscars telecast is reportedly struggling to sell ads as the awards show’s ratings continue to trend downward.

While industry insiders certainly welcomed a category celebrating the work of Casting Directors – whose expertise help steer producers and directors toward selecting the best talent for a given role – many were left scratching their heads over why the Academy still has not yet honored Stunt, something that has been a part of cinema since the days of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

The push for “Best Stunt” has been ongoing for several years and has finally been gaining steam with industry insiders who feel the category is long overdue. Speaking with Variety last year, Chad Stahelski, the director of the John Wick movies, said that he and several others in the Hollywood stunt community have been petitioning hard for the category to finally have its debut.

“We’ve been meeting with members of the Academy and actually having these conversations, and, to be honest, it’s been nothing but incredibly positive, incredibly instructional,” Stahelski said. “I think, for the first time, we’ve made real movement forward to making this happen.”

Stahelski said the debate has been centered on who would receive the award.

“The question is, we haven’t had the real talks about how do you even determine what to award,” Stahleski said. “Like is it for best stunt? Is it best choreography? Best action sequence? Best stunt ensemble? Does the stunt coordinator get it? The guy doing the gag get it? The martial arts choreographer? The fight choreography? The stunt double? The second unit director? The editor? Who gets the award? All these are great questions that just need to be talked about by smart individuals on both sides of it, the stunt community and the Academy.”

From The General to Ben Hur to Bullit to The French Connection to Raiders of the Lost Ark to Terminator 2 to Mission Impossible, achievements in stunt coordination have been a continually evolving craft within the cinematic art form, without which we would not have some of the most thrilling in-camera action sequences in movie history.

Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning feature film, EXEMPLUM, which can be viewed for FREE on YouTube or Tubi. “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge. “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto. A high-quality, ad-free stream can also be purchased on Google Play or Vimeo on Demand. Follow him on Twitter @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.