Golden Globes First TImers; Marc Platt On Wicked, Oscars, Musicals

A column chronicling conversations and events on the awards circuit.

With all the sturm und drang this week about the Oscars moving from ABC to YouTube in 2029, our attention-starved president illegally sticking his name above JFK’s on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the continuing drama of the pending Netflix-Warner Bros marriage — the latest chapter saw David Zaslav acting as tour guide of the fabled studio lot for Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters — it is comforting to know there are still some show business traditions we can count on.

That happened this week with the annual Golden Globes First Time Nominees Luncheon at the Maybourne Hotel in Beverly Hills. Well, yes, it was only the second annual Golden Globes First Time Nominees Luncheon after debuting last year at the same hotel, but the fact that it is back means it is now a tradition, and in the fast-moving, ever-changing landscape of Hollywood I will take that as some kind of comfort. Right?

At any rate it is a relaxed, nice holiday affair and every attendee got a gift bag with a Golden Globe cookie and a gift certificate for two people to come back to the very British Maybourne Hotel for an afternoon tea in 2026. Mixing TV and movie names, first-time TV stars present included Severance’s Britt Lower and Tramell Tillman, and Pluribus‘ Rhea Seehorn, while the film side saw The Smashing Machine’s Dwayne Johnson, The Secret Agent’s Wagner Moura, Sorry Baby’s Eva Victor and One Battle After Another’s Chase Infiniti.

The latter’s Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical nomination is not only her first for the Globes, it is also for the first movie she has made period. She was chatting with tablemate Damson Idris of Cinematic and Box Office Achievement nominee F1, who wasn’t there as a first-time Globes nominee himself but certainly as a first-time attendee of the First Time luncheon.

After a group picture, Golden Globes president Helen Hoehne addressed the nominees in a toast: “Your work resonated with 400 voters from 95 different countries and regions, which speaks to how incredible your work is … We hope to continue this tradition of being in front of such an inspiring group of people.”

Hoehne was seated at a starry table that also included Kevin Hart, a Globes first timer for his stand-up comedy special, and Johnson, both in town shooting the final Jumanji movie. Johnson seemed totally floored by his first Globe nomination. I told him I was kinda surprised the Globes never found a way to recognize him before (like maybe in comedy for Tooth Fairy?), but this is his first real foray into an awards-y kind of role. He told me he slept through the early morning nominations announcement, and then when there wasn’t a lot of action on his iPhone he assumed he didn’t get a nom. Suddenly a single text arrived from Ryan Coogler with congratulations, so that is how he found out.

Seehorn, in her brand new series Pluribus, was another thrilled Globes first-timer but told me everyone just assumed she already had not just been nominated but also won Globes for Better Call Saul. Nope, never. She was famously passed over so unfairly every year on that show, as well as at the Emmys, until finally getting a nomination from the TV Academy towards the end of Saul’s run.

Nevertheless, as the lead in her own show (also from Vince Gilligan), the Golden Globes have at last made it right. Seehorn laughed at the thought that for all these years she probably could have just claimed on her bio that she was Golden Globe-nominated and probably no one would have said a thing. I told her I actually knew of publicists who did that in their clients’ bios: When I was a producer at Entertainment Tonight, a PR firm sent me Yvette Mimieux’s bio that claimed she was an Oscar nominee in 1962 for Light in the Piazza. Uh, impressive as she was in that film, but NO she was never Oscar-nominated.

You never know who the Globes virgins might be. I recall being at this lunch last year and seeing Adrien Brody and Mikey Madison, who turned out to be the eventual Best Actor and Actress Oscar winners at the end of the season. Neither had ever been nominated at the Globes. With relative newcomer Madison that wasn’t surprising, but 2002 Oscar winner Brody being completely Globes-ignored for The Pianist and all his subsequent work — that was surprising. I also remember having a nice chat with Ariana Grande and her mother at that lunch where she too was thrilled to be a first-time Globes nominee for Wicked. She is up again now this year in Wicked: For Good but couldn’t come to the lunch since second timers aren’t invited. She missed some delicious branzino.

THE GRAY LINE BETWEEN COMEDY AND DRAMA AT THE GLOBES

Speaking of Globes, the big shocker for me was the failure to nominate Wicked: For Good for Best Motion Picture – Musical Or Comedy. I mean really? The Globes are an entity that forever has separated Drama from Musical/Comedy to be able to honor both, and Wicked was nominated last year, so it was naturally assumed the finale would be as well. It is the essence of what the category is designed for, but despite getting five nominations (one more than last year) it was overlooked. Last year it only won the consolation prize of Cinematic And Box Office Achievement (an award given for making money) and is nominated for that again. But a look at what did get nominated in Musical/Comedy shows a category in which there is no pure comedy, and certainly no musical. Blue Moon is about the Broadway opening of a musical but not one itself; Bugonia is not easily defined as a comedy, and neither is Marty Supreme, No Other Choice, Nouvelle Vauge and One Battle After Another. They all have laughs but don’t really fit neatly into what you might traditionally call a comedy. Conversely Iran’s It Was Just An Accident nominated for Best Motion Picture Drama, really has more laughs than the Comedy category contenders. Next year may I suggest a change? How about Best Motion Picture- Musical or Comedy that really is a Musical or Comedy.

CAN WICKED: FOR GOOD BE AN OSCAR MAKE_GOOD FOR MARC PLATT?

So while we are riffing on Wicked: For Good, a movie I loved and could easily call Wicked: For Great, I recently hopped on a zoom to talk to its esteemed producer Marc Platt, who also gave us Wicked of course last year and is producer of the long long long running stage play that opened in 2003 and is still running and leading the Broadway boxoffice charts many weeks, as well as with productions around the world. He certainly should be celebrating this week as Wicked: For Good got very good news from the Oscar shortlists where it landed with 8, tied with Sinners for the lead, and mentioned in every single category it could have been and even twice for the two new original songs added to the movie version. This indicates great strength and a possible second consecutive Best Picture nomination for the project.

There can be no one more responsible these days in keeping Broadway musical adaptations alive and thriving on the big and small screens than Platt. His TV musical credits include Rent, Grease, Jesus Christ Superstar, Once Upon A Mattress, and A Christmas Story. His past Broadway musical motion picture adaptation credits include The Little Mermaid, Dear Evan Hansen, Aladdin, Into The Woods, and not to mention gems like Mary Poppins Returns and of course the Oscar winning La La Land on the originals front. Of course the La La Land Academy Awards night is now the stuff of Oscar legend. He is sanguine about it all, especially when I asked if he still thinks about that night in 2017 when his movie was mistakenly declared the Best Picture winner over actual winner Moonlight after Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were handed the wrong envelope. “I relive it to the extent that I was an Oscar winner for about a minute and 45 seconds. That was really very awesome, but mostly and truly, you know, it’s just become part of my own journey. I appreciate you raising La La Land, the making of that film, similar to Wicked, was just joyful from beginning to end,” he said.

“And honestly, when you work so hard as any producer, director, craftsperson, actor, you work so hard on a film, the journey of it is joyful, and it really defines the experience. We all want success in any way that we can get it, but sometimes, success is measured by that journey, and La La Land, even with that conclusion, that evening, which was a surprise, a beautiful film ended up winning best picture, but that film, La La Land, is just joy for me, and I’m so proud of it, and again, it’s a musical genre, which, for my own journey, is something I’m very proud of, like I am with Wicked.”

And he should be proud because Wicked, and Wicked: For Good aren’t just frothy song and dance exercises. It also took him 20 years to finally greenlight the movie(s) with Universal, and he says it was a big risk since as producer of both the stage and screen versions he had a responsibility to the fans, but when director Jon M. Chu came along with the idea of two movies, distinctly separating the two halves of the beloved show, the second act being much darker, it gave the film version a different purpose and it was expanded to the point where taken together it runs five hours. These movies have gravitas, especially For Good, and much relevance to today’s world and the state of it. “It’s a credit to Stephen Schwartz, and Winnie Holzman, and Gregory Maguire’s novel that, so prophetic, they are able to write a tale, a fairytale that reflects the world we’re living in, because Wicked has always felt relevant. In 2003, the country was going through something different,” he said. “We were being told about weapons of mass destruction that seemingly didn’t exist, and we went through COVID, and each time, the story seemed to reflect something about our society, human behavior, and at the end of the day, and specifically Wicked: For Good, the ability of people, regardless of their differences, to connect, and to find each other, and to see each other for the character of their souls, and when they do that, not only change each other for good but have an opportunity to change the world around them, and I think that’s timeless, whether it’s political or not.”

Platt attributes a lot of its relevance to that fact, that it never feels dated. “Something becomes a classic tale, a classic fairytale, because it is timeless, because no matter when you experience it, again, it’s reflecting something that you feel, that you draw a metaphor for the world around you. And the great thing about Wicked is it’s an entertainment, and the films are experiences whether you’re 8 years old or 80 years old, and you take something different from it. You know, a kid might not know what he or she is feeling in a moment, but they get a sense of right or wrong while they’re aspiring to these characters and these strong female characters,” he said. “Whereas somebody older, who might be more politically minded, might draw upon the political metaphors, which, you know, is in the DNA of The Wizard of Oz. Frank Baum’s original popular novel, in 1900, embedded in that was a whole sort of satiric look at Populism, and you know, the gold standard, so the yellow brick road comes from, versus the silver standard, and farmers against the business elite.”

As for the idea being floated by Schwartz that there may be more story to tell in this Wicked universe? “I think, for all of us, there are ideas, and you know, we have become quite a family, I mean, decades, I think the bar is very, very high, we have to get over that bar, and then nothing’s impossible, and these are obviously beloved characters. The source material is beloved, and so, you never know” ,he says and then adds more when I ask about continuing it on the stage as well. “Well, I don’t know about that. I’ve been doing this a long time. My hair is gray, but I’m thankfully still here and still grateful to be producing both on film, which I love, and in the theater, as well. So, you never know.”

As for the actual next project he has, it is another “continuation” of his live action versions of the animated trilogy How To Train Your Dragon. The first one came out and succeeded over the summer in a very busy year for Platt (which also included Disney’s Live Action Snow White) . “It’s a franchise that did fabulous. There were three animated films created by Dean DeBlois, and he’s been the writer/director of the live action, and will do the second one, as well, and you know, a completely different genre, but in some ways, thematically (like Wicked), ” he said. “You have a kid in that movie that’s an outsider, the way Elphaba in Wicked is an outsider, and he wants to change his world. He doesn’t want to fight dragons. He wants to find a new way of communicating, getting along with them, and seeing them in a different way. It is thematically related, although different genres.”