Oscars 2012 Best Picture Betting Preview

In some respects it’s a little bit early to be casting an eye over the runners and riders for this year’s Best Picture Oscar. After all, nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards won’t be announced for another couple of weeks. However, in my experience value fades pretty quickly when betting on this iconic event, so in many ways the earlier you can get a wager down the better.

The Oscar for Best Picture is the last award given out on the night and arguably the most prestigious of all Oscars. This year sees a massive odds-on favourite for the prize in the shape of The Artist, which can be backed at a measly best price of 4/7 with Skybet.

The Artist is a black-and-white silent movie set in Hollywood in the late 1920s and a homage to some of the classic films that were around during that period. Quite simply it ticks all the boxes for a Best Picture award: it’s ground-breaking (no one’s made a real success of a silent movie since the 1930s), classy and about Hollywood’s favourite topic: Hollywood. It would be a major upset if it didn’t win, although it’s questionable it should be so heavily odds-on given the field currently consists of more than two dozen runners.

If by some quirk of fate The Artist doesn’t win the ‘Best Picture – Comedy or Musical’ category at the Golden Globes this Sunday then by all means steam in and lay it on the betting exchanges while you can, but I simply can’t see that happening. It’s the most nominated film at the Golden Globes and should win its main category hands-down, especially when you consider it’s up against deeply unfunny rubbish like Bridesmaids.

Winning at the weekend probably won’t bring its odds in that much further anyway as there are two Best Film categories at The Golden Globes, the other being ‘Best Motion Picture – Drama’, which The Artist cannot win, meaning another film will share the limelight. At the current odds I’d say reluctantly swerve The Artist at 4/7 for the Oscars.

Second in the betting for Best Picture is The Descendants at 5/1 with Betfred, a truly awful family drama that makes Ordinary People (which it’s clearly aiming to be) look positively unsentimental. How on earth it can be in with a chance of winning the coveted award is beyond me, but then academy judges are proven suckers for sickly-sweet claptrap. After all, the truly dire and aforementioned Ordinary People won the Best Picture Oscar in 1980, beating the peerless Raging Bull.  5/1 is not an awful price therefore given the judges’ past form; although I think there is better value elsewhere.

Third favourite with the bookies is War Horse at 13/2 with Betfred, a Steven Spielberg adaption of the hugely popular play of the same name currently showing in Broadway and the West End. The film is nowhere near as good as the theatre production, although you write off Spielberg at your own peril given his standing and influence in Hollywood. His work has been nominated six times for Best Picture and he’s won only once (for Schlinder’s List in 1993), so there may be an argument made by some that it’s his turn again. Personally, though, I don’t see how a reasonable adaption of an uber-successful play can win Best Picture and I’d want higher odds than 13/2 to get involved. One to avoid.

Next up in the betting is 3D adventure film Hugo at 12/1 with bwin. The film is Martin Scorsese’s tribute to early French cinema and a pretty good one at that. It didn’t blow me away like The Artist (both are homages to early cinema so the comparison is valid), but I’ve seen a lot worse films win Best Picture and Scorsese certainly deserves some more Oscar gongs. Odds of 12/1 are thus somewhat generous in my view, especially considering the movie celebrates film-making which, as we established earlier, is Hollywood’s favourite topic (people with learning difficulties being second). It’s just a shame then in this case it’s French and not American film-making that’s being revered as Hollywood nearly always rewards its own.

Beyond the top four runners, the rest of the field look like speculative long shots and their odds reflect that. Head of the chasing pack is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (perhaps one of the worst named films of all time and, judging by the trailer, a very poor offering) at 20/1 with bet365. Other outside bets include J Edgar (starring Leonardo DiCaprio in different levels of make-up) at 22/1 with bet365,  Tinker Tailor Solider Spy (the slowest paced film I’ve seen this century) at 40/1 with bet365 and Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Part II at 150/1 with Paddy Power.

Recommendation: 1pt bet on Hugo to win Best Picture at 12/1 with bwin.