Director Rob Marshall and the cast of Mary Poppins Returns including Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Emily Mortimer and Ben Whishaw are kicking off Deadlines first New York edition of The Contenders, the all-day event today that highlights award hopefuls from the major studios and indie distributors.
Taking place at the DGA Theater in NYC, the invitation-only event for Oscar voters and key guild members is at capacity and will feature a day full of major talent from the years best movies. It provides voters with a kind of one-stop shopping opportunity to hear from talent and filmmakers and see clips from movies in contention for the industrys highest award. After eight consecutive years as a staple of the awards season in Los Angeles, and for the past two years in London, it seemed only natural to bring this incredible opportunity to the Big Apple — particularly this year where so many of the films we will be highlighting were made.
It is a great year for movies, and an especially great year for movies made in New York. Be proud and look at this as an opportunity to see which screeners and screenings you want to move up to the top of the list before making that all-important vote.
In addition to the Mary Poppins Returns gang, also scheduled to appear are Brad Bird, Peter Hedges and Lucas Hedges, Peter Farrelly, Paul Schrader, Ethan Hawke, Jonah Hill, Bradley Cooper, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Jeong, Matthew Heineman, Paul Giamatti, Kathryn Hahn, Tamara Jenkins, Tim Blake Nelson, Zoe Kazan, Barry Jenkins, Regina King and cast of If Beale Street Could Talk, Marielle Heller, Debra Granik, Alessandro Nivola, Brady Corbet, Amandla Stenberg, Russell Hornsby and Spike Lee plus BlacKkKlansman cast members Adam Driver and John David Washington in addition to many, many others, with Bohemian Rhapsody star Rami Malek closing the day at the 20th Century Fox presentation before the studio hosts a cocktail reception.
Amazon hosts a breakfast and Netflix is hosting the lunch for what promises to be a memorable experience we are thrilled to bring to New Yorkers for the first time. Follow along on Deadline.com all day as well as at #DeadlineContenders on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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