Intro for September 22, 2026

Dear Gossips,

Oscar speculation about The Odyssey began the moment it opened in theatres, if not before. But the film’s box office, which has now exceeded $1.7 billion, an astonishing number for an R-rated movie, has made it Universal’s highest grossing film ever, and is definitely a factor where Oscar contention is concerned.

For the last couple months, however, one of the Oscar questions related to The Odyssey was about strategy, specifically in which category Anne Hathaway would campaign, supporting or lead. You could make the case for either… and now we have the answer. Variety reported yesterday that the studio will be submitting her for consideration in the Best Supporting Actress category which means that from The Odyssey there will be two supporting actress contenders – Anne and Samantha Morton.

One of the theories before they made this official was that if Anne were to go lead, Samantha might have a more clear path to win in supporting, although Penelope Cruz has been steadily building momentum over the last several weeks. La Bola Negra just won the audience choice award at TIFF, often an Oscar bellwether, plus she’s coming off a terrific performance in The Invite which is also in play.

But if we’re talking about momentum, no one has more of it than Julianne Moore after The Debut screened at Telluride and TIFF, firmly positioning her as the frontrunner in the Best Actress category. Julianne is so crazy f-cking good in this film that, right now, it doesn’t seem like anyone can touch her. I wonder if that factored into Universal’s decision to push for Annie in supporting.

Anne, of course, already has an Oscar, in the supporting category, for her performance in Les Misérables which, if you can believe it, was 16 years ago. She’s had an incredible year, and her fifth and final project of the year is coming out next week. Verity opens on October 2 going head-to-head that weekend against Tom Cruise in Digger. There are some people who think that Verity will beat Digger at the box office. Digger doesn’t look all that accessible, it’s a big swing, it could be divisive. And there’s a built-in audience for Verity since it’s a Colleen Hoover adaptation and the target demo is women coming for Annie and Dakota Johnson with Josh Hartnett as a bonus. What’s even more interesting, for some of us movie business nerds, is that Annie and Tom just announced that they’re doing the Days of Thunder sequel together and should Verity actually win out over Digger at the box office, it’ll be Annie coming into that project as the box office heavyweight with The Devil Wears Prada, The Odyssey, and Verity just behind her.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey