Oscars Check-in - Predicting Best Actress
We’re a little over a week out from the nominee announcements for this year’s Academy Awards and the total amount of votes for this year’s model (as of right….. now) are a little less than 1/3 of the total votes tallied from a year ago. There’s still a lot that can change, but some trends are starting to appear. In the spirit of drumming up a little bit more intrigue, I’m going to dive deeply into the snapshot of just one current race - Best Actress.
I chose this particular race to focus on because I feel like it’s a good barometer for the voter pool we have so far. Sometimes at this point in the race, the results can be a bit wonky - people haven’t watched all the films yet or are maybe still trying to determine which way they are going to vote - but the Best Actress results seem to be generally in line with other online predictors are saying.
DraftKings is a sports book, which means these odds are partially statistical based off of experts and partially based off of how much money our collective cousins are putting down on the race.
Demi Moore, The Substance -165
Mikey Madison, Anora +200
Fernanda Torres, I'm Still Here +700
Karla Sofia Gascon, Emilia Perez +1200
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked +2500
Here’s an explanation of how Gold Derby determines their odds:
The following Oscar odds are derived from the combined forecasts of four unique groups: experts we’ve polled from major media outlets, editors who cover awards year-round for this website, top 24 users who had the best accuracy scores last year, and the mass of users who make up our biggest predictions bloc.
1. Demi Moore, The Substance — 19/10
2. Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here — 16/5
3. Mikey Madison, Anora — 9/2
4. Cynthia Erivo, Wicked — 13/2
5. Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez — 17/2
My pals Walter and Michael have a model that predicts winners (not odds) based off of previous awards throughout awards season. You should definitely jump over to their newsletter and hit the subscribe button there as well, to keep up on the race to the finish.
Mikey Madison, Anora (68.9)
Demi Moore, The Substance (62.3)
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked (49.5)
Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez (49.5)
Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here (23.6)
So what does this all mean?
First, I want to focus on the Ratings column of my system:
1 Fernanda Torres 0.564601
2 Demi Moore 0.266295
3 Mikey Madison 0.249626
4 Cynthia Erivo -0.360011
5 Karla Sofía Gascón -0.720510
If this were a non-biased system, Fernanda Torres would be the runaway odds-on favorite in my system, which is a pretty stark contrast with the fifth place she currently sits in at Numlock Awards.
Instead, it seems to be more of a two-way race between Demi Moore and Mikey Madison. Why? Torres is getting absolutely hammered in the Game Ratio section of my model:
1 Demi Moore 0.248311
2 Cynthia Erivo 0.234797
3 Karla Sofía Gascón 0.234797
4 Mikey Madison 0.221284
5 Fernanda Torres 0.060811
The other four nominees have basically the same viewership as one another, while the number of votes Torres even has a chance to receive are being crushed by the audience for I’m Still Here being seemingly much, much smaller.
What we end up with are:
two nominee at the top: Demi Moore and Mikey Madison
two nominee at the bottom: Karla Sofía Gascón and Cynthia Erivo
one nominee in purgatory: Fernanda Torres
I find this all very interesting and exciting because it means that this race isn’t over. Demi Moore is the favorite in my ratings. The Substance has slightly more viewers than Anora, and Demi’s overall win percentage edges out Mikey’s as well. These are both, however, definitely small enough margins that this can flip… But don’t rule out Fernanda Torres just yet. Her winning percentage of over 86% is enormous. The question is, will enough people see I’m Still Here for that to make a difference?